


Fool Me Twice

by Ihlamur



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied pale PorKri, Implied past CronKri, M/M, and everyone being obtuse as hell, and more introspection and dialogue than you could possibly wish for, flangst, warning for ableist language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:09:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ihlamur/pseuds/Ihlamur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repetition has never held much appeal for you, not even when you were alive and your dreams meant something more than a joke with no punch line, but being trapped in a cesspool of memories is no way to make a fresh start... Your friends are your worst enemies and comfort is a two-edged sword when offered with such contempt, so you find yourself alone again, and again, and again.</p><p>So when the first breath of change steals into your monotonous existence, what can you possibly do except cling to it for as long as he will let you?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> _Though I had every intention of completing this fic when I began writing and uploading it, I'm sorry to say that the chances of it being finished are currently looking slim. I'm no longer comfortable going public with writings depicting an intimate relationship between an adult and a minor. I will not take down the chapters that are already up for the sake of transparency, but am leaving this note here as a disclaimer that the premise of this fic does not reflect my present interests._

 

_Fool Me Twice_

oOo

_One_

It is some time before your mind begins to notice the pinpricks of pain in your balled fists. It is even longer before you think to unclench them; your fingers are stiff yet trembling, and your nails are freshly tipped with bright, irreverent red.

This is not the first time you have drawn blood in this way, nor the first time you have felt a flicker of irritation at the absurdity of its color. Not the first time your long-suffering sweater has come in handy as you covertly wipe your hands on its sides. Not the first time you have stared at the crescent-shaped indentations on your palms and wondered  _why._

This is not the first time you have stumbled across yourself. Fallen over your own thoughts. Flailed for words, for reason, and found nothing but a blind rage.

Your name is Kankri Vantas. Her name floats around her, laughing at the sky, crumpling the sand:  _Latula, Latula._

 _Latula Pyrope,_ the air whispers.

You feel yourself stand and begin to walk away; it's a slow, painful thing to do and probably even more so to watch. In your mind—your frightened, rage-fogged mind—you can hear her calling after you.  _Wait up, KK! Leaving already? Where are you going?_  You smile to yourself, fully aware that she never saw you watching in the first place.

It is some time before you are completely alone again, and even longer before you realize that you had been alone from the start.

_Again..._

_I'm lost again, yet again,_  you think.

A bewildered sort of crash rings out behind you in the distance, followed by a stream of fluent cursing. Mituna has fallen down again. Again Latula will kneel beside his prone, twitching body with that impenetrable smile and grasp his shoulders and help him sit up. Again they will cling to each other, uncaring of the several hundred universes that are sewn into the patchwork of the afterlife, uncaring of who sees, who notices, who has been watching from behind the trees.

This is not the first time any of this has happened, and you are beginning to feel lost again; lost in the meaningless cycles, repetitions, iterations; lost in the untethered twirling of your current existence; lost in anger and despair and very real fear.

Somewhere in the endless expanse of memory bubbles, you see Damara raise one trembling hand to her face.

 _She has been crying,_ you think. For a few moments—or is it months, or twenty untold sweeps? Time has long lost meaning—it seems like an agreeable course of action for you to take as well; it is an intense thing to do and would provide you with much-needed distraction from yourself and your festering thoughts. However, your blank, white eyes remain resolutely dry. You cannot shed a tear no matter how you struggle.

_I suppose one needs relative sorrow to cry spontaneously... but I have felt this way for so long already, maybe my heart has ceased to identify it as pain?_

_Is it pain... this hollow numbness, this anger?_  Is the burning in your chest, the dizzy chanting of your mind, the same as the prickle in your bleeding hands?

_It could be just boredom._

_It could be fear._

_It could be pure rage with nothing behind it._

_Or it could be pain._  Again you return to yourself and you are now on the ground—when did you sink to the ground?—your back against an enormous tree and the grass soft, yet crisp, against your skin. There are trees everywhere, now that you think to take a look around you; you have not come this way before, and you are immensely relieved.

_This is my first time here..._

You should not be surprised. The afterlife is impossibly vast and you have done little by way of exploring, preferring to remain in places you were familiar with on Beforus, but you allow yourself a pleased smile nonetheless as the forest sighs gently.

Firsts have grown rare.

 _I need to get away from this... this madness..._  this blind monotony will kill you a second time if you do not do something about it, you are sure, but...  _what do I do?_

_I'm an old troll now; old in a still young body and in desperate need of a death that will never come._

_What an existence, Kankri Vantas. How... triggering._  How triggering indeed. You offer the forest a wry, unamused smile, and the empty air smiles back.

"Trigger warning", you mutter absent-mindedly. "TW for intense boredom and mentions of suicidal tendencies."

A voice among the trees clearly says, "Fuck."

_...Karkat?_

You could have sworn that that had been the voice of your young descendant; there are few others like it, so keen-edged and petulant. Before you decide to process the reason he had sounded so upset, you are already calling out, in sore need of fresh company. "Karkat, that is you, isn't it?"

_It's not the first time I'm seeing him either, anyway. Even if he decides to run, he's nothing new either at this point._

So you welcome the astonishment when you see the sullen face emerge from the green darkness below the trees.  _He's always scowling._

 _Bless him._ Karkat is still a change.

"I didn't know you were here", the younger troll is saying irately. "I came this way looking for somewhere to be alone and this place is normally deserted. Sorry. I'll leave."

"Well, I wouldn't mind if you were to join me", you begin, but the abject horror on Karkat's face causes your voice to die away, and a cold little blot begins to take root in your stomach.  _So he doesn't like to see me either._  "I can just leave if you'd like", you finish, your voice steady.  _To be honest, I'm not in the best of shape to be talking at length._

"Why'd I want to make you leave?" Karkat only looks further annoyed by your suggestion. "You found this place."  _Though I wish you hadn't,_  the brittleness of his words tells you. He is turning to go when you find your voice again, though it sounds quieter than usual and rather dispirited to your own ears.

"If you want to sit here, you can talk all you want and I won't monopolize the conversation."

Karkat stops, but he doesn't look your way again. "I don't want to talk."  _Not to you, at least,_  you clearly hear.

"Good", you say tonelessly. "Neither do I."

There's a moment of strained silence in which the unending world beyond you drifts serenely by, you sink a little further, and Karkat's glower washes over your furrowed forehead in a way that is both unpleasant and not. Then the black-shoulders rise and fall in a resigned shrug and he makes his way into the little clearing, his scowl firmly in place.

"Let's just pretend", he says jerkily, flopping down beside you, "that I'm not Karkat and you're not Kankri—let's pretend that we don't know each other. I don't want to deal with people right now."

_Let's pretend that we don't know each other, you say..._

"We don't, though", you mutter.

"What?"

"We don't know each other." You steal a sideways glance at the younger troll's expression and give up this train of thought as a bad job. "It's alright, I understand what you're saying. If it helps, I'll pretend."

You receive only a grunt in response and for a few— _minutes? Hours?—_ the air is empty again.

Your mind, however, is not. It rattles on tirelessly as you regard the grass blades with a weary eye before shutting them out altogether; in the darkness of your eyelids you search for peace, for an end, and find only the dazed ramblings of your living memories.

_God, I am tired._

"You're talking out loud", Karkat says swiftly and you bite your tongue, mumbling an absent-minded apology. In the split second before you lapse into silence again, something pokes your arm.

You open your eyes to see him glaring at you with a defiant mix of curiosity and frustration that you have never seen before. Taken aback as you are, it is a wonderful first.

"I'm going to regret every nook-sniffing moment of this, but—what's the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You—" he pokes your arm again with one slender finger, so similar to your own, and you stiffen automatically. "What happened to your fucking sermons? How are you even sitting here without tagging trigger warnings for grass abuse and objectifying trees?"

"Don't touch me." You make a show of being very unkind indeed to the grass as you scoot away to a distance where he cannot comfortably reach out to poke you again. "Trigger warnings are not jokes, Karkat, and I do not use them lightly." You should be angry, you know, or at the very least offended... But somehow your very emotions have exhausted themselves.  _All my fuel reserves are burning up and I still have to go on._

Your name is Kankri Vantas and you have never been more tired in the entirety of your existence.

"Triggers are specific phrases or topics that can set off unwanted emotional responses in sensitive people", you hear yourself saying; your mouth is beginning to overtake you again. "It should be everyone's objective to avoid causing others inadvertent emotional suffering in the event of them having such triggers, and while the rest of my friends chose to eschew this undertaking I—"

"Kankri."

"Ah, I'm sorry", you say immediately, now feeling nothing short of miserable, "I'm sorry I keep getting carried away, I just—"

"If you don't stop talking, I am going to go out of my way to trigger both of us."

You stiffen further; your irritation, previously numb and dormant, is beginning to surface with unexpected rapidity. "I am lucky enough to not have any ostensible triggers that I know of, Karkat, unless you plan to violate my personal space, which I'll thank you not to do—"

" _Pyrope."_

The world stops turning; the afterlife melts.

Your voice drops and then dies.

Karkat is breathing heavily, his eyes aflame. " _Pyrope,_  fucker. Now stick that in your sanctimonious little piehole and smoke it." As he gets to his feet, angrily brushing at the little bits of grass that still cling to his pants, he mutters, "At least we have _that_  in common."

And his footfalls fade away into the trees, and you are alone again, once again coming to terms with the realization that you have been alone from the very start.


	2. Two

_Two_

oOo

The next time you see Latula, her back rests against the strange pink-brown trunk of the plant that you have come to think of as the brain tree, her legs are stretched out, her arms limp on either side of her slender torso: the picture of lazy contentment.

Mituna is sprawled on the ground next to her, his helmet lying forgotten to one side, apparently fast asleep. You allow yourself a sideways glance at his face, obscured by his tumbly hair as always, and wonder if you could possibly be any more different.

You wonder if you could possibly feel any more pained and weary. You wonder if you could possibly hate yourself any more than you do now.

You move on.

oOo

Damara is standing with Rufioh and you do not understand a word of her speech.

"Ah, I'm sorry, doll." Fragments of their conversation float over to you, stripped of all meaning by the distance. "No, I don't think..." " _Atashi wa anata no me no mae ni—!_ " "Damara, you need to—"

At least she is no longer crying.  _That's a change. It's still something._

You sigh, unnoticed, and move on.

oOo

The forest you stumbled upon a few— _days? Hours?_ —ago is deserted, and the trees stand tall in the low light streaming into your glade, stately and steadfast.  _Nothing's changed._

_Nothing ever changes._

And yet, you know something has changed.

Your heart has changed. Where you previously found anger, you now find nothing but bitterness; where there was hope—no matter how little—there is but despair; where there was inescapable longing, you find only,  _only_  a liquid fatigue that seeps through your bones from the base of your ankles to the very tips of your horns.

_Am I going to be like this forever? Dull and jaded and full of blunt resentment?_

Your thoughts have died, leaving a hollow ache in their place. You have all the peace and quiet you have ever wished for. For the first time, it is dead silent in your head, and you would be lying if you said it didn't frighten you.

The grass is still soft and ungrudging against your body. You could have first found this place a sweep ago. You could have found it yesterday. You could have found it at any time and it would be the same and that is precisely why time has lost all meaning for you.

That is precisely why you feel your sanity beginning to slip...

And, to your sudden, utter astonishment and delight, your mouth opens wide of its own accord in what can only be a yawn.

_I'm..._

_I'm sleepy..?_

When was the last time you could sleep, Kankri Vantas?

_I don't seem to recall sleeping since—since I was last alive,_  you think, hazily registering that you have begun to slide further down the tree trunk until your head is nestled among its roots.  _I just never needed to..._

_My mind was so wild, so untamed..._

_Where has it gone all of a sudden, and why am I left with only this emptiness?_

You try to remember the last time you felt that familiar desperation for some peace, but the impossibility of time and perception in the afterlife makes it a frustrating and enormously futile task; you give up soon, choosing instead to enjoy your doze while it lasts, surrounded by quiet beauty and green-tinted, marvelously unscorching sunlight.

_Green..._

Your eyelids are getting heavier and you are weak with relief.

_That tree cover..._

You need sleep and you are going to get some.

_...Karkat came out of that gap in the trees, didn't he?_  Emerging from the greenish darkness with that scowl and his thoughtless words and his displeasure at finding Kankri there and—

" _Pyrope."_

" _Pyrope, fucker."_

Your eyes drift shut; you are asleep within minutes, sinking into the black slumber of those who have been dead for aeons. And somewhere in the recesses of your numb, sedated mind, it stirs.

" _Pyrope."_

_I know when I began feeling like this._

It stirs, and it sleeps, and you are lost to the world under the benevolent canopy of your first forest.

oOo

Karkat is sitting beside you. You sense, more than see, his twitch of annoyance and discomfort as he sees you watching him through your drowsy, uncomprehending gaze. Something about it feels strange; surreal, almost, and you know you are dreaming.

_Why am I dreaming of Karkat?_

"Well, at least you're not ghost dead", the younger troll mutters, as ornery as ever. If he has any recollection of their last meeting, he does not show it.  _How long ago was it for him? How long has it been for me?_ "You've been out for ages."

" _Pyrope, fucker."_

"Why are you here?" you ask dazedly.

"What do you mean?" Karkat's face is sulky. "I like this place. I'm not about to stop coming here just because of you."

_Well, it is only a dream, so..._

Awake, your response would probably have differed, but you are warm and surprisingly comfortable in your layers of fresh sleep and there are no reasons you can think of to not speak your mind. So you allow yourself a smile that turns into a grimace halfway through and mumble, "I'm glad."

Karkat casts you a sharp glance. "Why the fuck that would make someone happy is beyond me."

"I don't know", you say plaintively. "It's a nice change."  _Let's just leave it at that._

"Is it really that boring out here?" he snorts, clumps of grass bent out of shape in his clenched fists. "Is it so boring that you're prepared to put a lid on your lectures to keep someone like me around?"

Dream or not, you do not have to think twice. "Yes. Very much." A pause. "I do not  _lecture_."

"Yeah, and I piss Faygo." His nostrils flare for a second. "Has no one actually talked to you about this at all? I find it near impossible to believe that you and your teammates spent almost eight fucking sweeps on a planet like Beforus and no one got it into their think pans to just try and stop—" he shakes his head, seemingly lost in his own sentences; he does have rather creative sentence structures, you think amusedly. When he resumes, his voice is tighter, more distant.

"It's a wonder", he says to the trees, "that nobody ever told you this, but you are downright  _insufferable_."

_Oh._

The tight cold bud in your stomach, lying dormant for you know not how long, bursts into bloom.

"They've told me."

"Eh?"

"I said", you hedge out without looking at him, "they've told me." You turn away and onto your side, drawing your knees up to your chest, blinking wearily at the grass that weaves through your line of vision in deep green blurs.  _This weariness follows me even into my dreams..._

"It's their nickname for me. The Insufferable."

Even with your disoriented sense of time, you know that the pause that follows is very long.

Then there is a hand on you, not poking, just resting on your arm with unexpected caution; you can feel it through your sweater, the uncertainty, the readiness to spring away at the slightest sign of objection, the humming of bones and veins and mutant candy red blood in your descendant's hand that is so similar to your own. And you do not have the heart to resist its touch.

You wait for the spoken apology. It doesn't come. You find that you no longer care.

"Tag your triggers, Karkat", you murmur, and this time you wait for the snap. The second storming off. The outburst that  _this isn't fucking Bubblr or whatever stupid website you picked up your tagging and triggers and outlandish notions of social justice from, this is the real world, this is—_

"I will", Karkat says quietly.

When did the dream fade away? When did you wake up to realize that you had been awake all along? In your distorted, memory-haunted version of reality in the afterlife, does it even matter?

_It wasn't a dream..._

_And my response is still the same._  "I'm glad", you say. Another pause swells between the two of you, fragile, punctuated by the sound of your heartbeat. "You're not going to go, are you?"

He's looking at you now. You look back from your position at the base of the tree that he sits against and he holds your gaze for some time, his hair falling about his face in a jumble that mirrors yours, his eyes warm and bemused and flashing you a thousand different answers.

_I don't want you to go. I've been losing my mind._

"No", he says at last. "I'll stay. I've been bored too."

Some unknown language of red makes itself known in your chest; before you can even wonder at what this impossibly new sense of happiness is, it has melted the shard of cold in your gut altogether and you are left with a shaky delight, cracked down the middle like a thaw. Unable to say much, you whisper your thanks.

"I'm telling you, it's nothing to be thankful for", he says sullenly. "I've already been an ass to you twice in the brief amount of time we've known each other, there's nothing to say that this won't keep happening."

"Well", you manage to say, "you tag your triggers and I'll tag mine."

"What if we have the same trigger, though?" His gaze is keen on your skin but not wholly repugnant. "What do we do then?"

" _Pyrope, fucker",_  he'd said that day.  _"At least we have that in common."_

You stifle a sigh that is equal parts fatigue and bewilderment at yourself. "We talk."

"I don't want to talk", Karkat says immediately. "Not about that."

"Neither do I", you reply, fighting to keep your voice steady. "But it should help. I—it should help us both." You push yourself into a sitting position and the hand on your arm falls away at last, leaving a tingling tepidness in its wake. "Let's talk about Pyrope."  _Our triggers. Your Pyrope, my Pyrope..._

_She was never mine in any way._

_And what about you? Was your Pyrope ever truly yours?_

The forest feels large, all-encompassing; your tree is but a speck in this ocean of jade and olive, your voices the chirping of insects, your footfalls the tracks of marchbugs on grass blades. It would swallow your words whole. You know this and are glad again.

"Tell me", you mutter. "Tell me about yours and I'll tell you about—about mine."

_Is this the first of many changes? Or am I still alone?_

Karkat lowers his eyes to the ground, offers a tiny nod, and starts talking.


	3. Three

  _T_ _hree_

oOo

"...but that's another story in itself and I'm not ready to go down that—does time even pass here?"

"I'm sorry?" You look at Karkat in some surprise; he is gazing up into the leafy canopy with probing eyes, showing no signs of wanting to resume his story.

"This place. This afterlife dream-memory bubble thing that you people hang out in. Does time pass at all? We've been sitting here for ages, but the shadows haven't moved at all."

Despite your earnest desire to finish hearing Karkat's story of what had happened with his Pyrope— _Terezi, her name is Terezi—_ you shrug and reply absent-mindedly, "Not in a way that you are familiar with, I think. These are all constructed from memory; they remain the same through tens of thousands of sweeps. After a while time begins to lose its significance."

_It was driving me crazy._

"But returning to what you were saying...?"

"I'm done", Karkat mutters. He looks very young and very troubled, sprawled out on the springy grass with his hands behind his head and his half-lidded eyes rather distant. He also looks significantly less angry than he ever has. "That's really all there is to say on the matter." Is there a shift in the tone of his voice when he speaks again, or are you imagining it? "Your turn."

_My turn...?_

"My story isn't as gripping." There isn't much to say, actually, not when you compare it to Karkat's long and painfully complicated description of his own relationship, his behavior...  _Because I had no relationship, there was nothing to behave about, no signals to give off._

_My story is a complete and total lack of a story._

Something in Karkat's face flickers with irritation at this. "I didn't tell you about my shit because it was gripping. I told you because you asked. Now I'm asking for yours, so spit it out already."

His eyes have not left the canopy overhead; you spend a moment—or several—absently contemplating the gray of his irises, wondering if they will start to turn red soon, wondering how he feels about that.

_That's not it..._

" _Pyrope, fucker."_

You don't trust yourself to give your story the brevity it deserves, not when your sentences can be so long and your tone so rambling. You cannot remember the last time you made a conscious effort to dial back the verbosity that you once cultivated with a passion; the thought simultaneously irritates and frightens you.

_I'm beginning to forget what it was like to be alive, Karkat._

"I'll keep this as short as I can", you hear yourself say. "I knew Latula Pyrope from a young age; we were probably three or four sweeps old when we met. She was nice to me. She—"  _Don't stop. Don't stop._ "She was actually really nice to everyone, but—well—"

"It's fine", Karkat cuts in, and there is no heat in his voice at all this time. He still isn't looking at you. "I know how that goes. Believe me."

"You know—?"

"Yes." The trees rustle in the unmoving air and, to your disgust, you feel a stab of relief at not having to explain.  _It's pathetic._

"Pathetic, isn't it?" says Karkat, uncannily apropos. "But go on."

"Well—we were just six sweeps old when we played the game, same as you." This is part is easy, you think... This part is just facts. Just hard dry facts as long as you can keep it brief. "We did badly, to say the least. Your society seems to have revolved around fighting for survival from a young age; ours was nothing like that. But some of us did better than the others, particularly Meenah and Damara... Well, at least until they took to fighting each other instead..."  _Straight to the point. I can't keep going off at tangents._

"Anyway... I was probably worse off than anyone else, which did not stand me in very good stead, and Latula... well, if I am honest, she wasn't much better than I was, but she helped along as best she could."

 _It's getting harder already._ Your need to keep things short can does nothing to help.

_Let's just get this over with, shall we?_

"She was a good friend and I felt almost justified in harboring red feelings for her after a certain point. Then her other good friend met with an accident and quite literally lost his mind, and she's been entirely devoted to taking care of him ever since." You feel your mouth twist with all the bitterness of your gut, the bitterness of countless confused sweeps. "She became his matesprit some time before we died and death did nothing to change that."

The silence that follows is a blank white.

Karkat raises his eyes to yours from the grass. "And?"

"And nothing", you say tonelessly. "That's really all there is to say on the matter." A few blades of grass lie, crumpled and lifeless, in your hands. You do not remember how they got there. "'My' Pyrope is happily dating Mituna Captor."

"Captor", Karkat murmurs, turning away abruptly. "What's he like?"

_Infuriating._

_There's no other word for it._

The words feel like they are being wrenched from you, giving you no time to think, to wonder what he might say. "I think I hate him."

There is absolutely no wonder in Karkat's voice as he replies, "I know."

_Of course you know._

"It's just—"  _Am I talking too much?_  "It's just—you know—I shouldn't be hating him."

The younger troll still isn't looking at you. "I do know."

 _Mituna isn't all the way here. Sometimes I wonder if he's even aware of his feelings for Latula. Sometimes I wonder if he even knows they're matesprits._ How can you use up so much energy in envious hatred of a person whose broken mind alone is more misfortune than you would consciously wish upon anyone?

And yet, that's exactly what you've been doing. You know it. And Karkat, with his own violent feelings, knows it.

He's talking again. "You know... the afterlife is basically unending, isn't it? What's to say that things won't turn in your favor again sometime?"

 _Really?_  You don't know whether to laugh or give in to frustration again. "If you had an eternity to spend with the Terezi of present—just the way she is, never changing—would things turn in  _your_  favor?"

"Fuck no", he says jerkily, "but we're younger and more stubborn. It's different with—"

"It's not." You cannot even bring yourself to feel guilty for interrupting. "Sometimes, Karkat, eternity isn't enough."

"You haven't lived for eternity."

"I'm living it now, aren't I? Eternity is not a specified time period. None of us can even remember how long it's been since we died—isn't that enough? For how long do you expect us to keep count before the monotony of the days melts away all sense of time and day and month and sweep and all we are aware of is the fact that, despite ostensibly having died long ago, we are very much a different kind of alive?"

Karkat  _still_  isn't looking at you, but what you can see of his face is astonishment and a much softer form of the anger that he carries everywhere; dimly, you register that your voice has risen.

When he speaks again, his voice is dry. "Wow."

You have no response to that except the harshness of your breathing.

"This isn't even about Pyrope for you, do you realize that?" he says. "You're just fed up of living with yourself."

"Don't I know it!" you snarl.  _What's happening to me?_  More grass in your fisted hands, meek against the sweaty sheen of your palms; you force yourself to look away from his unreadable face and stare instead at the crushed blades. Somewhere, you register that the crescent-shaped nail marks have not faded yet, and you know it has not been very long since you last met Karkat. It is the first instance of time passing that you have found in this wretched slurry of worlds.

"Why won't you look at me?" you say presently with a petulance that you had not known you were feeling. "Wait, no, don't answer that. I just made a spectacle of myself. I am sorry. It's just—it's been a long time since anyone actually asked me to talk, and..."  _And with good reason, looks like._

"I'm not looking at you", he says, "because I've never liked myself much. That's all."

You try to gauge the thoughts behind his deadpan expression, and come up with nothing. "I am not you. You know that, don't you?"

"I didn't say you were me." His eyes rest lightly on the pooling beams of sunlight from a forgotten sky, filtering through the dense foliage overhead.  _This really is a beautiful place. Whose memory is this, I wonder?_

"That's what bothers me, actually... We're not as different as I used to think, but we're not similar enough for me to hate you as much as I hate myself."

"Well", you ask quietly, "do you  _want_  to hate me?"  _There are certainly enough despicable things about me that anyone would be tempted to._

_And if you still don't hate me as much as you hate yourself... just how much self-loathing are you carrying around with you?_

_Is it anything like mine?_

The silence lasts for ten thumps of your stirred heart in your ears. Then, to your surprise, he shakes his head. "Hate is fucking exhausting. This is going to sound incredibly stupid coming from me, but—I really don't like hating people. It's so much easier to care for them."

_What a strange person you are._

Your voice is gentler than you intended. "So you'd prefer to hate yourself instead?"

He turns and looks you in the face at last; his eyes are weary. "You know how that is."

You do not need to think before nodding resignedly.  _But you are nowhere near as unlikable as you believe yourself to be. I wish someone would show you that._

 _I wish someone would show_ me _that. If they did—even if it were just one person, just one—I think I could learn to tolerate myself. I could learn to stop hating if just one person were to show me that it's possible._

"I'm sorry I talk so much", you mumble. "Sometimes I start off with one thought and end up including several others in the same sentence and it probably sounds terrible to a bystander."

Karkat shrugs. "It's irritating as fuck, I'll give you that, but... I'm not a bystander."

 _And my thoughts are no longer the clamoring multitude that they were._   _God, it's a relief._

"The meteor will leave this bubble in a while", he's saying, and once again his voice betrays nothing. "I should be going. But—for what it's worth—if I can come back next time, I will."

A desperately lonely part of you—a very large, very insistent part—wants to make him promise. You bat the thought away with a scowl.  _Just when I thought I couldn't get any more pathetic._

"You..." Karkat has raised himself up on his elbows and is surveying you with a scowl of his own. "You need to stop thinking out loud. Fucking work on that, it's disgraceful to hear your thoughts spilling out of you like you can't even contain them."

But before the mortified blush can rise to your cheeks, he adds, "But just so you know, there's nothing pathetic about not wanting to be alone."

_What a remarkable person you are._

He's already on his feet.  _I'm sorry I'm such bad company, too._

"It's been terrible is all", you whisper, half hoping he doesn't hear you. He does.

"Here."

His hand is on your shoulder again. This time he gives it a quick squeeze before withdrawing. This time it does not even occur to you to object. And like last time, tingling needles dance beneath your skin.

He gives a little cough. "Hang in there. I said I'd be back, didn't I?"

 _But when?_  You cannot bring yourself to articulate the question even in your mind as he disappears among the trees. Does he know the answer? Do you want to know?

In a world where time has no meaning, does the answer even matter?


	4. Four

_Four_

oOo

_Forty-one._

"Would you like a handkerchief?"  _She's been crying again. I can only keep looking for so long._

Damara is quiet, her tear-stained face turned to the ground, her shoulders drooping limply, but the hand that she extends to take your handkerchief is firm and does not shake; she dabs at her eyes once, twice, then looks up and offers you a watery smile.

_Forty-two._

"I'd sit beside you, but... I have to be elsewhere", you mumble. "I'd ask you what's wrong, but I don't understand what you say. But if you are feeling triggered again and need assistance sorting out your emotions, I will do my best to help."  _I'd say more, but I don't really need to._

 _My thoughts are beginning to settle down for good._  And so are your words.

"Keep the handkerchief. It's not like I've had occasion to use it all this while, so you might as well hang on to it."

_Forty-three._

"Arigatou." At least this you understand. " _Thank you_."

"It's nothing", you say quietly. "I know how hard it can be to keep going when things are terrible."

You walk away as soon as you can, almost stumbling under impatience, awkwardness, and relief.  _We hardly ever spoke, after all. ...Not that we could._  But you have seen her cry on several occasions now and there was little you could do to stop yourself, little reason to try.

_Forty-four._

At your sides, your fingers keep their count; not quite seconds, too short to be minutes. You only have a vague sense of what time units were even like and ended up making your own just to be safe—ticks in time to the thud of your feet on the ground, to the soft whoosh of your breath in the still air, to the reluctant beat of your heart.

You will bring time back.

Even if it means having reset the counter a million times, even if it means keeping track of just how many numbers have passed since you last saw the person who had said he'd return, you will do it.

_Forty-five._

oOo

At five hundred and twenty-seven, you find yourself back in the forest and something tells you to stop counting.

 _This place... this place never changes,_  you think, though you are beginning to remember the way to your clearing among the labyrinthine trails and sharp, green-tinted sunrays. You have gotten lost here on occasion, but not measuring time meant that you have no idea how long you blundered about before finding your way again. This time your feet know where to take you.

You tell yourself that you are not expecting Karkat to be there, which is just as well, because the clearing is empty as ever when you reach it. Then, sitting against the tree that you have developed a particular preference for, your eyes finally come to rest on the grass and you see that several of the blades are crushed.

_So this place does remember._

"Five hundred and twenty-eight", you murmur.

_It's working, it's really working._

You are still bored, still bitter and weary and alone, but you no longer feel like you are losing your mind, and that makes all the difference.

_Because really, when I have not been bored and bitter and weary and alone? As long as I have time on my side, this is no different from when I was alive._

"Five hundred and twenty-nine."

_I wonder if there are flowers growing somewhere in this forest..._

Do things grow in the afterlife? Will the grass you have crushed stay that way forever, an unchanging testimony to your existence? Unsure as to whether the thought is comforting or unnerving, your fingers weave through the soft green blades regardless.  _This is silly. I should just carve my name into the tree and have done with it._

"Five hundred and thirty."

" _How are you even sitting here without tagging trigger warnings for grass abuse and objectifying trees?"_ he'd demanded, the heat in his eyes reluctant but curious and very genuine. You cannot help the smile that this brings to your lips; the stretch of your face feels decidedly unnatural, and you realize that you do not remember the last time you smiled.  _Was it with Karkat?_

_I'm not waiting for Karkat._

There is no counting the days and nights here, of course, not when the memories of darkness stay dark and those of the daytime stay steeped, like this forest, in a constant light. But six times you have counted up to a thousand, six times you have reset the counter... you mumble "Five hundred and thirty-one" with a new sense of dejection and try not to see yourself resetting it many, many times before your next break from boredom.

"Trigger warning for grass abuse and objectifying trees", you whisper with a mirthless chuckle.

_I shouldn't be waiting for Karkat._

_I should go look for flowers._

But you do not move and you cannot sleep, and your fingers pluck out one blade of grass for every number you count off until you begin to wonder if you will leave the entire forest floor bare.

oOo

"Six hundred and twelve", you start to say, but then something stirs in the gloom between the trees and your words trail off into nothingness.

Karkat is scowling as expertly as ever. His face betrays only annoyance as he gives you a once-over with raised eyebrows.

"What's the counting for? God damn, don't tell me you've been  _counting the seconds?"_

"Well, not the seconds, no", you mutter through the faint warmth that you know is glazing your cheeks. "They're longer than that. But it's the only way I can keep track of the time."

_You really did come back. Why did you come back?_

"That's... That's just fucked up." And just like that, he's sitting beside you with an ease that he is already beginning to perfect; again you find yourself questioning why. "D'you know though, the meteor that we're on is permanently dark. Keeping track of the nights is becoming a goddamn chore when there's no sky to look at, just the shitty rooms we're holed up in—you actually start missing the day when you're stuck in a place darker than a hoofbeast's asshole for almost a sweep and a half."

"Is that why you like coming here?" you ask idly, trying to keep your voice level.

He still doesn't look straight at you when he talks. "Pretty much."

_Of course._

You try not to feel the tiny frozen firework that goes off in your stomach, and it is your turn to look away. "Must be nice coming here, then. This is actually a rather pleasant amount of sunlight if you ask me."

"Well, I can't say I come here often enough that it's much of a pastime for me", he says, truculent againn. "You must like it here, having it all to yourself when I'm not around to bore the freakishly long pants off you."

_Is it so hard to believe that I may actually look forward to your visits?_

_But is it looking forward? Isn't this a whole lot closer to just clutching at the moments that make me feel alive?_

You ask none of these things. What you ask instead is, "How do you know about the pants? ...And there is nothing ridiculous about them."

He snorts quietly. "I'm not about to waste my precious few moments of relative peace arguing about the objective hilarity provided by your taste in fashion, but to answer your question, Meenah told me."

"My taste in fashion is perfectly fine", you say with some petulance of your own rather fresh in your voice, thinking rather unkind thoughts of Meenah. "Honestly, I wouldn't be wearing this sweater if it didn't get so chilly out here sometimes."  _Do I really mean that, though?_  You allow yourself to imagine Porrim knitting, incandescent fingers moving in time to the click-clack of her needles, her brow furrowed in concentration, and a wave of affection that is faintly horrifying in its enormity washes over you.

_I wish I wasn't so sick of seeing their faces..._

_I can't stand their faces, so I seek out one that resembles my own. I sense some irony there._

"...you're not listening, are you?"

"Huh?" you give an involuntary twitch as you realize that Karkat is giving you one of his rare full-on gazes. "Oh my, I am so sorry. I just..."  _I'm forgetting what it's like to have a conversation._ The very prospect of being swallowed by your expansive thoughts is depressing, but it creeps up on you when you think you're getting better and you know this is going to take a while.

"It's fine", he says before you can gather up the words to finish your sentence. "You've been dead for a fuckton of time."

"I sense some bias towards the spirits of the dead", you say feebly, and you cannot tell if you are joking. "Is this is a new form of bigotry?"

"It's me telling you that you've forgotten how to talk like a normal fucking person, so you needn't trip yourself up trying to hide it. Zone out all you want, blather all you want, just don't pretend like you're used to holding conversations any more. It's pathetic as dammit." His eyes have not left you.

"I am not conversationally impaired", you reply. Once again your voice carries your emotions better than your heart.

"Not everything has to be about impairment and advantage and privilege, for fuck's sake. Does it really matter that you have a problem so long as I don't mind and am still fucking sitting here?"

When did your fingers begin shredding grass again? "What if it does?"

"Why should it, though?" Karkat demands, his voice back to full volume and anger back to its hard-edged gleam. "Why do you feel the compulsive need to obsess over equality in spheres that, let alone being of great consequence, don't even occur to most people? Why can't you see that instead of gaining you acceptance, it's just isolating you?"

In the ringing silence that falls, you avert your own eyes and say dully, "Because I'm dead."

The tension is blinding.

"I don't know how that answers anything at all", Karkat mutters.

"It should", you say with a new surge of weariness. "I'm dead and you're not and sometimes—a lot of the time—I think of how trapped we must seem to you and that makes it hard to talk to you like I am a part of your existence in any meaningful way."

Karkat looks angry and reluctantly confused and younger than ever amongst the green as his shoulders slump. His tone is sullen as he says, "If you want to feel alive, I guess the first step is to keep track of time."

 _Ah._  Your insides twist with sudden alarm. "I haven't been counting this whole time, I—!"  _How long has it been? How many numbers?_ How could you have counted to your heartbeat when your descendant has sent it into a different rhythm altogether?

_Am I supposed to stop time when talking to you? Does it run on a different scale?_

"I was wondering whether or not to give you this, but I don't suppose I have any use for it at the moment, so..."

You look at him with some curiosity, hardly daring to ask. "You have something for me...?"

"Don't say it like that", he growls. "That makes it sound a whole lot more sentimental than it actually is. This is basically useless to me right now and I figured you'd use it better than I would. Not that I'd ever use this piece of shit anyway—I can't trust Strider to take requests like sane people do—all I did was ask him to make me a thing and he goes and produces this fart-sniffing abomination that I wouldn't be seen with in my worst nightmares. So you can have it. It's not like your fashion sense follows any rhyme or reason anyway, even by Alternian standards—"

"I get the picture", you cut in gently.  _Do you even have the right to ask me not to ramble, I wonder..._  "But I appreciate the sentiment anyway. What is it?"

He reaches into a pocket, his little speech having done nothing to draw away the color spilling onto his cheeks.  _It's red,_  you think absently.  _Just like mine. That's... kind of nice._  It is the first time you have felt no annoyance whatsoever at the anomalous brightness of your blood.

"I should be going, actually", he's saying in a voice somewhat higher than usual. "This is embarrassing as fuck anyway, so here's an idea, don't look at it until I'm gone."

Something flat, long, and rubbery is pressed into one of your hands; his fingers brush yours and they are emanating a wonderfully ridiculous amount of heat.  _Is it really that embarrassing?_

"I'm going now", he throws brusquely at you, intense awkwardness swirling in every movement. It flows along the bend of his knees as he stands and it creeps up his neck and you are trying not to smile because he is just so  _red._

But you do as he says and keep looking straight ahead, not allowing your eyes to drop to whatever it is you're holding. "Karkat, it's alright, I—"  _Thank you?_

_Thank—_

"It'll help you with the time. See you."

And just like that, the unwhispering leaves close in around his retreating back and you are alone again. And in your hand is a flowery pink wristwatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dave would totally get Karkat a lurid pink watch covered in tacky flowers if Karkat didn't specify what kind of watch he wanted this is not even in question okay  
> Oh and I should mention that Kankri's sentiments towards Damara were inspired by Tumblr user notdavestrider's fanart of them over here post/49386730679 (I hope they don't mind me butchering their lovely piece over here ughuu)  
> P.S. I'm still finding my footing with this fic so I'd love the occasional feedback because I've been getting hella kudos but not as many comments, so I won't know if I'm doing something wrong ;~; just a sentence here and there would be lovely *wonk*


	5. Five

 

_Five_

oOo

_Five minutes down. Five to go._

Sometimes Porrim forgets to turn down her light. Sometimes, when you have mercifully little occupying your mind and the echoes of the voices in your head are not as insistent, you find yourself watching the bend of her bare arms as her fingers flit over fabric, shaping garment after meticulously crafted garment, lipstick-stained thread and trimmed nails and harsh black tattoos standing out against the white that is her skin. She looks like a glowbug, and with some reluctance, you admit she also looks beautiful.

 _I almost want to talk to her._  Almost, but not quite, and most certainly not when she is deep in conversation with Latula.

_Almost._

Your eyes sit stubbornly on Porrim's lip piercing and refuse to move to the girl beside her no matter what.  _I'm not going to look at her. This is too much._ Pushing it away is unhealthy, but the self-indulgent torture that is watching Latula Pyrope will be the end of you. There is only so much you can endure.

The watch ticks against your skin; you have turned the dial inwards, so its steel back sits on the pulsing veins in your wrist, sometimes synchronized, sometimes not, but always comforting. The stretchy cuffs of your sweater press against it ever so slightly and images of the watch being embedded into your arm flash around in your lazily disconcerted mind. It is not an unpleasant thought.

_I'd never lose track of time again._

You have all the time in the world, and it feels glorious.

But you have allotted only ten minutes to this moment; ten minutes for you to rest your elbows on the gaudy yellow banisters of Prospit's moon and slouch over yourself, the blankness of your eyes shielding your covert glances at the two women not too far away from you. You wonder what you would appear to be doing if one of them looked over to where you are standing. You wonder if it has even occurred to them to look your way. You wonder if they have noticed you at all.

Seven minutes have passed. The second hand's ticking seems to seep through your skin into the very surge of your blood, into every pump of your heart, and you think of Damara.

_What does a time player do when time is lost?_

_Like any of that matters. We are no longer in the game._

You are not looking at Latula, but you can feel her smile swim in the air. It frustrates your every sense— _what do I do with a smile that I can taste and hear and smell, but not see, much less touch?_  Well, it's not like she can even smell. You snort with laughter and immediately have to stomp out a rising sensation of disgust at yourself.  _I'm dead, but I'm not ableist._

_Just two more minutes. Two minutes and I'll leave._

_I could stand here forever if she did._

_I want to leave right now._

oOo

And leave you do. The last two minutes are not quite up when your footfalls begin to puncture the rhythm of your watch; Latula's audible smile falls away and is soon indistinguishable from Porrim's low purr in the distance. If you try not to listen, you can close your eyes against what remains of their happy voices and sway in a breeze that you do not feel, the second hand's ticking providing you with a steady beat, and almost believe it to be music.

_Almost._

_Almost..._

_What am I doing?_

You have time. You have all the time in the world and nothing will ever convince you that things are not better this way.  _But what comes with time? Now that I have time, what do I do with it?_

The tapping on your back is a most unwelcome answer indeed.

You know every square inch of the fingers that now grip your shoulder, and their owner is not someone you want to deal with at the moment; not even trying to hide the way your entire frame has stiffened, you turn to face a smiling Cronus Ampora.

"What is it that you want?"

"Do I have to want something? I just thought I'd have a chat with my good friend since he's been broodin' like a wiggler for... well, a hella long time."

_Time, you say. Like you'd know._

"I'm fine", you say evenly, shrugging his hand off with little ceremony. "And I think it's common knowledge by now that I don't like to be touched, Cronus. It's"—you find yourself pausing and, for some reason, Karkat's face materializes in your mind—"It's quite triggering for me."

He makes no attempt to stifle his snort, and you can feel that ungodly burning in your chest again—a sensation that you had hoped to leave behind untold sweeps ago. "Don't", you snap before he can open his mouth to speak. "We both know how this is going to pan out, so you might as well save your breath and my energy."

_I have good reasons for not talking to you, and I wish you'd see that._

"I wasn't gonna say anythin' about you being part of the social justice league of Bubblr or whatever", he mutters after a moment's silence. You are no longer looking at his face, feeling entirely too petulant to handle the rest of the conversation with any degree of maturity, so you cannot see his expression. You do not want to.

Again, just for a moment, you are reminded of Karkat and how he rarely meets your eyes.

_Is this how he feels, then?_

"I don't care", you grind out in response to both Cronus and yourself. "Why are you here? Why, really? I hope you don't actually expect me to believe that you wanted to talk to me only because you thought—mistakenly, I might add—that I was feeling a little off."

Your chest is still heaving with that nauseous burn as he lets out a chuckle. "I never said you was feeling 'off', chief. You've been weird lately is all, but you don't look unhappy—if anything, you're happier than you were. It's me who's been feelin' down."

" _You've_  been feeling..." you glance his way and can feel your brow furrowing. "What am I to do about it? What's bothering you?"  _Of all the reasons you could have had for wanting to talk to me... How am I supposed to help you with this one?_

" _If anything, you're happier than you were..."_   _Have you been watching me?_

_Have you been watching me like I watch Latula? What's wrong with you?_

Your scowl intensifies and again—yet again—your thoughts wander back to Karkat, and they wonder how long it will be before you see him again.

"It's nothing", Cronus is saying, his tone airy and words curiously level. "I just—I dunno. I figured that if anyone can understand how screwy this whole afterlife deal is, it's probably you."

"'Screwy?' You're going to have to be more specific than that." Your patience is wearing painfully thin already, your composure tearing at the seams.

Cronus twitches a derisive fin in the tight silence that follows and then, all at once, bursts out, "Eridan's gone. He's just fuckin'  _gone._  One night he was there and the next he just  _wasn't._  There were other versions of him all over the place, of course—alternates from doomed timelines and shit—but the alpha Eridan— _my_  Eridan—fuckin' up and disappeared."

 _Eridan...?_  "Are you referring to your descendant?"  _Descendant? Ancestor? I'm not calling them "dancestors" like Porrim does, that sounds silly._

"Yeah, my fucking descendant", the other troll says impatiently. "He's not here in the afterlife any more. I searched for him like an asshole, lemme tell ya—searched for what felt like weeks—"

"You're afraid he might have been in one of the destroyed dream bubbles when it was wiped out", you finish, sounding weary to your own ears. "Is that what you're saying? That you're worried?"

The watch ticks at least a hundred times against your wrist before Cronus speaks up again. "I'm worried, I'll give you that", he mumbles, "but it's more likely that he just left because he couldn't stand me."

"Well, I'm quite certain that wasn't the case." You find yourself having to fight down a sigh; when did you grow so tired? "People don't just... wander from one bubble into the other, and if he was around here somewhere you'd have found him. It's more likely something just pulled him back."  _That is how it works, right?_ You try to scrounge up the scraps of information dropped your way amongst Aranea's proselytizing and Karkat's irate rambles— _Karkat, I'm coming back to Karkat again—_ and shrug when nothing else comes to mind.

"We would have used that mechanism too, except by time we had non-god tiering bodies to prototype, there was nobody left alive." _Meenah saw to that._ "How long ago did this happen, anyway?"

"Hell if I know." His fins are twitching in a manner that, with a lingering sense of dismay, you find yourself able to read quite well.  _I thought I'd forgotten. I certainly wanted to forget._  "Not like there's any way to tell the time in this place. But that's the thing—even if it feels like forever ago, it coulda happened yesterday and we wouldn't fuckin' know. This place is just— _stuck_. And he found a way out—or got pulled out, if you're right—but I'm just—not just me, all of us, we're still here, and it's..."

Now you are quite unable to look away from his face; you've never seen him like this, the blank white of his eyes doing nothing to hide his borderline panic, his mouth twisted into something that is as far from its usual greasy smile as it can possibly be.

_Of all the people, it's you who realizes how horrible this place is._

His cigarette dangles from his lips, forgotten and visibly on the verge of falling out altogether; before you can even ask yourself what you are doing, your hand is rising, pulling it out with two pinched fingers. You try to ignore his start of surprise as you hand it back to him and can almost believe that there is no embarrassed blush tinging your face.

_Almost._

"Worry doesn't look good on you, Cronus", you say quietly.

"What—"

"I'm afraid that's all I can say to you."  _What else am I supposed to do? My job is to preach tolerance, not heal wounds. ...Especially not your wounds._   _Not when you couldn't even try to fix mine._  "He's gone. It's not going to be easy to deal with, certainly, and if you ever need to talk, I suppose I can listen to you... But I don't know what else to do."

_Karkat..._

"Yeah, I get it", Cronus says softly. Way too softly. "It's just—he was pretty cool. Shame to see him go, especially since I didn't actually get to see him go..."

_Is he going to come back at all? Should I wait in the forest?_

_Either way, I need to leave._

_I..._

"Here." You are only half aware of what you are doing as you step closer to the taller troll and, with one scramblingly quick motion, squeeze out the briefest of hugs before scooting further away again—too brief to feel the mad skip of his heartbeat or breathe in the smell of his sweat, things you have not encountered in a very long time and intend to keep that way. "I wish I could say that it's going to be okay, but I'm not in a position to promise you anything. Take care, and I'm sorry about your matesprit."

"He wasn't my—"

"Don't bother", you cut in, now positively itching with the need to get away. "You wouldn't have taken to watching me after his disappearance if you weren't trying to fill in the hole he left behind. Bye, Cronus."

Even to your distracted eye, he has never looked more deflated. "Yeah. See ya round, chief."  _I don't want to turn back to that chapter. I'm just so tired of all of you._

 _Where's Karkat?_  The ticking of your watch gives no reply.

_What is the point of having time on my side when all I can do is wait?_

 

oOo

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the heavy implications in this chapter ;~; It kind of needed to be there for the story to advance, I'm gomen if any of you dislike Cronus (I'm a compulsive multishipper so I dunno...)
> 
> About the whole thing with Eridan, Amporacest is implied to be canon and I ship it so hard I helicarrier it, so I couldn't resist slipping in a little something :B But I thought that if they actually ended up in a relationship, it'd hit Cronus pretty hard when his ghost disappeared after Gamzee prototyped his corpse—not like they were expecting it. And all the more reason for Erisolsprite to be a grumpy bag of dicks, too.
> 
> Oh god I'm fully expecting some negative feedback tho ._. But any feedback at all would be lovely of you people, really. (P.S. I'm awfully sick today and wrote half this chapter when suffering from a bitch of a fever, which might be why it reads kinda funny ugh I'm sorry)


	6. Six

_Six_

oOo

Karkat's eyes are shut tight, his face not quite softened by sleep.

It is not just you who has had to wait after all. Your breath disintegrates, then comes back all at once, much like the hammering of your heart against your ribcage as it gives out a single dazed murmur:  _he's here._

He's sprawled out on the grass in a manner uncannily similar to yours, lips parted, hair tousled, and very much  _here. He's here,_  you think numbly.

_For how long have you been here?_

For how long have  _you_  been waiting now, Kankri? Refusing to look at your watch or let your heart keep count of the seconds as they hum alongside the pulse of your wrist? _Does it matter any more?_

_He's here._

And you cannot bring yourself to wake him up.

With a tread that's much softer than usual, you take your usual place beside him; the ground feels softer than usual, more inviting, the boundless trees almost jubilant. Leaves brush laughingly against each other in a breeze you see but do not feel.

_Just how big even is this place..._  You never ventured beyond this clearing, did you? You found a place where your mind calmed down a little and clung to it.  _Clung to Karkat, to be precise._  A quick glance at his sleeping figure turns into an unabashedly long gaze, comfortable in the knowledge that for once, you need not hide as you watch.

"I didn't honestly think you'd come back", you say to him.

_Didn't I? Didn't I believe him the first two times? He always came back, didn't he?_  Knees pulled up to your chest, you rest your chin on steepled fingers and wonder.

"Doesn't look like I'll wake you if I talk quietly." Your words carry more breath than voice. "Though if I am honest, you're a better listener awake than asleep. Anyone can just sit there, right...?"

_Can they, really?_  Has anyone else done as much for you before?

"...Right? But really good listeners don't just listen, they talk back... They offer their own thoughts, they..."  _Have I ever allowed anyone to do that?_  "...They come back..."

_I didn't expect you to come back at all._

"No one ever does, you know." The longer your eyes rest on the clenched eyes of your descendant, the harder it grows to speak; why this lump in your throat?  _Why am I such a fool?_

_But you did._

"And the thing is, I still don't know if you come here to see the sunlight and get away from your companions on the meteor or... Well, it's just... just a thought, really, but..."

_You look so peaceful now, that's all... who'd have thought your cheeks flushed so delicately in sleep?_

"...but sometimes I think—I hope—that it's because of me."

_You came back._

_I really am a fool..._

"I'm grateful", you mumble. As your head drops onto your knees, you realize just how tense the very muscles in your body have been, how they sigh now with the slump of your shoulders and droop of your eyelids; all the hope, all of the restless, ceaseless waiting crashes down on you in one warm wave of fatigue so intense that you feel light-headed.  _Thank you._

_Heavens, I am tired... but thank you._  The leaves rustle just once, quietly, as though accepting your thanks.

_I'll wait till he wakes up,_  you think, even as your eyes try and fail to open against the red darkness of your sweater-clad arms. You have been waiting for too long; can you manage a little more?

_Yes, yes I can. I'll wait._

_What else do I have left anyway?_

But when the world materializes around you once again and you can open your eyes at last, you are alone and the forest is as silent as it has always been.

oOo

_Oh._

You remember this... It's crept back beneath your skin after so long, though, and at such an expected time...  _Oh_ , your mind repeats faintly, trying not to think back to tealbloods on skateboards and loud happy voices calling your name, saying goodbye, saying  _It's okay, Kankz, I'll see you soon!_  saying  _I'm sorry I couldn't make it, Kaykay, but Mituna,_  saying  _But we're cool, right?_

_Of course I remember this feeling._

But...

Your thoughts are sluggish, reluctant to slide against one another, and you find yourself cursing the relief you feel when a familiar voice says, "Kanny?"

Even with her smile so hesitant and her face so wary, sometimes Porrim appears every bit as cheering as she'd like to be; you look up from where you sit on the stairs of the Prospit-Derse bridge, curled up against the banisters, and offer her a little smile of your own. If her expression betrays surprise at this, you know it should not sting.

_I haven't been very kind to her. I couldn't be._

"How goes the afterlife, Porrim?" you murmur, drawing a preposterous amount of comfort from her cozy familiarity, from the well-remembered folds of her favorite dress and the way it falls around her bent knees as she sits beside you. Despite your long-standing reluctance to let her touch you, in your present state of mind it's all you can do to remain still and not slump against her bare shoulder, no better than the wiggler that she so determinedly takes you for.

You try to clutch the ticking at your wrist but it offers you no solace.

Porrim leans back against the stairs, supporting her slim torso by the elbows as she gazes skyward. "I've been surviving, for the most part. Thank you for your concern." None of you have had irises for a very long time, but you feel her eyes shift to you nonetheless. "I suppose that's more than you can say, though?"

"What do you mean?" Your voice sounds paper-thin. "Why does everybody seem to be laboring under the delusion that I'm upset in some way?"  _That's not quite what Cronus said, but it was close enough..._

" _If anything, you look happier",_ he'd said.  _"He's gone—Eridan's gone."_

_Karkat..._

"I'm perfectly alright, you know", you mumble, making no effort to disguise your petulance. "I've just been a bit quieter than usual, and that seems to be doing everyone good."

You shouldn't be feeling this at all.

"Whether or not it's a relief for us is a different issue", Porrim says gently. "Something fairly momentous must have happened for you to clam up like this."  _Momentous?_  "Are you capable of talking about it at all?"

_Momentous... I shouldn't be feeling this, I..._

"I saw you talking to Latula some time ago", you hear yourself say, decibels away from a whisper. It is only much later that you wonder why, in your haste to escape the horrifyingly familiar ache in your chest, even Latula seemed like a good choice of subject.

"Kankri."

_Why can't I stand you?_  You raise your eyes to hers at last, offering acknowledgment—and some gratitude—that she has dropped the nickname for now. "What is it?"

_Why is everyone determined to find something wrong with me?_

"Are you really still brooding because of Latula?"

_How am I supposed to answer that?_

"No", you spit at her before the thought has even fully formed in your head, and it's immediately too late to stop, too late to do anything but watch the crease between her brows deepen as you rail on. "This isn't about Latula, and I'd appreciate it if you refrained from making such assumptions in the future, since it reflects poorly on those of us who have a congenital propensity for quiet reflection upon any issues that may be troubling us at the moment"—the crack in your voice is sudden but not unexpected—"which I assure you I have none of presently—and is counterproductive to the healthy development of young trolls, leading similarly inclined people to suppress their—"

"No indeed", Porrim cuts in dryly; your increasingly blurry vision shows the rise and fall of her ample chest, the weariest of sighs.  _When did my eyes begin to water? Why are they watering?_  "Thank you for reminding me not to try, Kanny. I'm out."

_Oh god, I..._

It's gone, whatever semblance of discipline you tacked onto your mind and heart and tongue with Karkat's unceremonious arrival in your existence is now gone. You are right back where you started, you know now... alone and bewildered and weary and—

Fleeing from something that you haven't felt since Karkat and most certainly shouldn't be feeling  _because_ of Karkat—

_Porrim, I'm sorry...?_

As though from a great distance, you see her narrow back retreat, the glow beneath her skin flickering on for one irate second before dimming again. You lower your eyes, then shut them painfully tight against tears that you had not known you could shed.

_I'm such a fool..._

_Just like that, I'm feeling empty again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have way too much to say on the subject of Kankri being accustomed to waiting for people who excuse themselves from his lectures and then never come back, but I'll hold my tongue.
> 
> Oh, and ALL the bonus points if you can guess why the leaves were rustling.


	7. Seven

_Seven_

oOo

A knot sits in your stomach and stiffness on your shoulders, but your lips have the faintest of smiles on them as Karkat's eyes—open this time and entirely present—gaze at something you cannot see.

"How's the watch working out for you?"

"Very well", you reply immediately, and the knot tightens. "Thank you so much. It—it's certainly proving to be a valuable possession, seeing as I'm now beginning to reacquaint myself with the flow of time as it would pass for me in the world of the living. It—yes, it's working out just great."

_Now I know only too well how much time passes here between your visits._

_I was a fool to think that anything I did would end happily..._

"How is your life on the meteor, Karkat?" you murmur. "How are the humans?"

He scowls in response, and maybe you are imagining things, but there is no real annoyance behind it. Maybe you have been imagining it all along, but his scowls—his jibes, his loud voice, his angry glare—now seem more like an expression of his personality than responses to any situation.

 _I'm nothing if not imaginative,_  you think wryly, as Karkat shrugs. "Uneventful as always. Exhausting too, in a sense, since everyone kind of just does their own thing... I mean, Strider's got Terezi, Kanaya's got Rose, Gamzee is too insane for me to actually enjoy his company even to the—the negligible extent that I once did—" he breaks off briefly and his eyes flit to you for a heartbeat. "There's the mayor, I guess, but you can't really talk to him, so. It's largely just me by by own loathsome self."

"About the human named Strider", you ask tentatively, watching his face with care, "what's he like?"  _Is he like Mituna, I wonder... or rather, like the Mituna we knew?_

Karkat raises a hand to the back of his head, absently raking at the hair that riots there. "He's a bilious stone-faced excrescence from the load gaper of the horrorterrors' community slum. Fucking insecure asshole literally never takes off those shades either, and they're not even particularly good shades, if anything they're lamer than a three-legged barkfiend and useless to boot in the darkness of the meteor. It's a wonder he can see where he's going, pretentious little..."

The knot in your stomach loosens just a little.  _He feels that way too, does he..._

"...but for all that, yeah, I can't say I hate him or anything", he finishes, more more quietly than he had started. "No point putting all your energy into hating someone who couldn't give less of a fuck."

 _Oh._  That's... more than you can say.

It tightens again, pulsating. "You have a bigger heart than I do."  _Not that I didn't already know that, I suppose._

" _It's so much easier to care for them", you said. Then why do I find it easier to hate?_

You say none of these things. What you say is, "Does the same go for loving, then? Is there really no point in loving someone who couldn't give—couldn't be bothered to care?"

And in that miserable moment, you realize that you do not know whom you are talking about.

"You make hate and pity sound like they work the same way, but they don't", said Karkat. "If you really 'loved' someone—which is usually just an obnoxious way of saying you pity them; don't fucking kid me, we don't really fall in 'love' like in stupid human books and rom-coms with their idealistic single-quadrant bullshit—you'd let them be happy without it having to interfere with your own peace of mind. If their happiness is detrimental to yours in any way, regardless of their stupid quadrant decisions, you're just being a bulgesucking shitstain who can't label their feelings right."

_Then I suppose the only thing that I am sure of is that I'm a bulgesucking shitstain._

_I shouldn't be feeling this—_

"I'm no good with my feelings, Karkat", you mumble, utterly defeated. "It takes me so long to figure out and accept how I feel that by the time I am ready to act on them the world has moved on and I am left to deal with the consequences of stirring myself up too late."

He snorts. "Can't help you with that. Even if I was any better at dealing with my own fucked-up head, it's not something you can be helped with. At some point you just have to grow a pair of globes and get with the times."

_But I can't. I can't be feeling. I shouldn't be feeling at all._

_If only I could talk to someone besides you, maybe I wouldn't feel the need to cling to you like this... maybe..._

"I need to get away from the people I call my friends", you say into the bony hardness of your knees. You have no recollection of curling up into a ball, but like this you can almost forget about the gnawing tension in your stomach and the throbbing of your stupid, stupid heart.

"I can't stand them any more, and I can't stand myself when I talk to them, and I... god, it's been so long..."

_I've been so alone, and I..._

"Kankri, I know." You raise your eyes to meet his, which are looking at you for a change with frightening intensity and an emotion that you fail to place. "I can't understand what it's like to feel the way that I have for possibly millions of sweeps, but... I know. Have you ever been to other parts of this memory?"

You shake your head blankly and mutter, "I never really had reason to venture beyond this place."

_You won't understand what that means, which is okay._

"Come with me."

"Eh?"

"Stand up and come with me. There's a place around here you should probably see. It'll do you some good." He's still gazing at you. You still cannot recognize the look in his eyes. Stubborn curiosity shutters out everything else he might be thinking like a fine mesh.

"I..."  _I what?_

"What is it?" he grumbles, already getting to his feet and brushing himself off. Your eyes linger on the bits of grass falling from his pants with some hesitation.

"But, well... You found this place and weren't very happy to see me here. Why would you want to show me something that you can keep to yourself?"  _Why... why would you willingly keep me around when I'm..._

"Because you need it", he snaps. He's  _still_  not looking away; when was the last time he looked at you for so long?

"But—" you begin, then close your mouth.  _But what? What do I want to hear?_

"And because your presence doesn't bother me like it did, I suppose."

_...Oh._

And the knot has never felt so loose, so close to negligible.

"Kankri, for Suff's sake, are you going to come or—"

"Yes", you say quietly as you let go of your knees, which had begun to press into your chest, adding to the ache that already sobs there like a cramp within a muscle.  _So that's what I wanted to hear..._

_...that my waiting for you does not keep you away._

 

 

oOo

Trees stretch overhead from one bank of the brook to the other, branches tangling like laced fingers, like hands trying to touch. It's barely wider than a trickle, but it glimmers over smooth round pebbles in the early morning sunrays as its narrow path snakes away to you cannot see where.

Not even the ticking of your watch can keep all of time from stopping for a moment.

 _This..._  Does Karkat know, can he possibly know how your heart leaps at the sight before you?

Did he know of the uncontrollable smile that now tickles your lips? Is that why he brought you here? As your eyes dart from one liquid sunspot to another and grow ever wider, he stirs beside you and lets out a soft cough, probably seeking comment, but you have no answer except the look on your face. Your throat feels too tight to speak; your legs, unsteady.

_It's... flowing. The water's flowing. Something is moving in this forest after all._

_I..._

Your voice cracks mid-sentence, mid-word, as you finally manage to ask, "How did you know I would—?"

"I don't know?" you feel, more than see, his nonchalant shrug. "That place back there is nice, but it's so static—nothing moves or changes, it's just stuck that way. I figured you'd like some place a little more... well, alive."

"Hey", you say, but your voice sounds near unrecognizable, carrying your words on a breath of the purest euphoria you have felt in an untold amount of time. "Hey", you say—or do you laugh?—"that's discriminatory towards the dead."

Gray eyes that have not quite begun to show their red slide your way with an angry gleam, which fades immediately on seeing that, after you care not how many sweeps and aeons and bewildered tears, every nerve in your body is humming with silent, glorious laughter.

_I don't even know what I should feel any more, so why not laugh?_

He does not join in, but a corner of his mouth twitches upwards. "Fancy seeing you so happy. It feels fucking surreal, you know that?"

_It is surreal._

"I'm sorry", you say automatically, even as your mirth recedes into the ghost of a smile that you are sure will not leave your face for some time. "This place is perfect and I... I'm grateful to you."  _My very feelings are surreal._  "I'm just... really grateful, I..."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Calm down before you shake the skin off your bones." You are painfully glad for the interruption; your eyes have begun to prickle again, much to your horror.

_Why do I need to feel like this, Karkat?_

But instead, you ask, "Why are you kind to me, Karkat?"

He's looking at the water now, eyes teasing its gentle bends among the grass with something that you swear is determined obstinacy. "I'd call that a stupid question, but I can't really give you an answer. Just sit the fuck down and enjoy my infesting your time while you can, since you can actually tolerate me."

 _Was I really expecting an answer, anyway?_  "I'm sorry", you say, and in that moment you mean it for reasons that you cannot know yet.  _It's painful... but wonderful._

 _I shouldn't question wonderful things. I won't question you._ You will go where the wild throbbing ache in your heart leads you, even if it is to the first truly  _wonderful_  thing that has happened to you in life or death.

Even if it leads to Karkat, you...

"I'm just a fool", you mumble through a different sort of laughter.

There is no scowl on his face as he replies, "So am I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sighs about Kankri for a hundred years  
> Can you tell he's already deep in with no chance of getting out aaaahh my baby  
> Also I am so done with this chapter it's not even funny it came out all wrong and doesn't look like what I saw in my head and I'm just *flips seventeen tables and a desk lamp* I'm gomen everyone


	8. Eight

 

_Eight_

oOo

The tree cover gives way only in odd patches where pale sunlight strains through the foliage. It's just thick enough that the two of you can lie back on the bank as it slopes gently towards the whispering water, his face turned to the branches overhead and your face turned—ever so slightly—to his.

"This is even better than I thought it would be, to tell you the truth", Karkat says meditatively, eyes half shut. "I'd only gotten one quick look before I brought you here, didn't have time to—"

His sentence dies away unexpectedly and he seems to bristle a little at your inquiring look. "It's nothing."

_Didn't have time to...?_

"When did you find this place, anyway?" you murmur, too warm and comfortable to stir up much curiosity. Your limbs are more relaxed than they have been since you saw him last, since you last loosened your hold over your wayward tongue and saw the tired softness in Porrim's eyes harden a little more.  _Since I recognized how empty I was feeling._

_I still don't know why._

_I shouldn't think. I shouldn't question._

"I kinda just stumbled across it while trying to find my way to the place where—the other place, I guess." There's an odd quality of restraint to his voice. "The meteor's usual entry point lies somewhere on the other side of this stream, but this memory is fucking  _enormous_. Whoever's it is, they knew the place like the inside of their nook."

It is certainly not the first time you have wondered whom this forest could belong to. "It's a pity you have to walk so far, though."

"That's not actually a problem", says Karkat. One of his arms is tucked beneath his head, cushioning it, and for one second—just one tick of the watch against the pulse at your wrist—you are visited by a fleeting but incredibly vivid image of your own arm there in place of his.

_What—_

"I mean, the meteor is big and everything, but we can't walk all over it because the labs and shit are all stuffed in one corner—is it possible to have corners on a vaguely spherical object? Because it has bloody corners—so it's not really a big space. These bubbles are actually something of a break for me, I'd go stir-crazy without them." After a pause, he snorts and adds, "Ironically enough."

His face is stubbornly devoid of expression again, so you ask, "Why ironically?"

"It's just—" he breaks off abruptly and rolls his eyes at the trees in a manner that strongly reminds you of Porrim. "Nope, fuck this. I'll probably tell you later when I have more energy. I should be going in a while anyway."

_Ah..._

_Well, he'd have to leave at some point,_ you think,but it does nothing to lighten the sudden heaviness you feel in your chest.  _Why am I even trying to question this? Don't I know what it is by now?_

_Maybe not, but... I don't want you to go._

It hurts a little to even allow the words to form in your mind, but...

_Don't go._

"Are you insane? Well, you are, but—more insane than the rest, I mean. I do need to get back to the meteor and my friends some time before I lose the entry point for fuck knows how long. I'm not about to let myself get stuck in the afterlife."

 _Did I just say that out loud?_ "No, it's alright, it's perfectly fine!" you choke through a mortified blush. "I didn't mean that, I was just—I'm sorry—I just—aren't we friends too?"

Your voice flies into a different octave altogether with the last question, something that you had never intended to ask; you slam a trembling arm across your face, shielding it from your his eyes, cursing your thoughts and your ability to speak and the burning of your cheeks that could set the forest on fire. When you speak again to push out a terrified apology, it is little more than a squeak.

_My ghost is going to die too. At long last. All this time and it's going to die of sheer embarrassment._

And you realize that you no longer want to die.

Sinking in your thoughts again, you do not see the truculence in Karkat's eyes soften a little. You do, however, feel the warmth of the hand around your wrist; it tugs briefly, as though trying to pull your arm away, and there is no way on Alternia or Beforus that he cannot feel your stupid heart racing.

_What an idiot I am._

"There's no need for that", you hear over the pounding of your blood in your veins. "Kankri. Stop that."

As you force yourself to relax, to try and relinquish the trembling in your very bones, your arm falls away from your face and the hand releases your wrist, leaving an old yet familiar tingling in its wake. Karkat is kneeling over you now, his face not very far from yours—which you know must now be a shade of red rivaling that of your sweater—and his eyes are as unreadable as ever.

"We're friends", he says quietly. "There's no point in you worrying about that." With his next word, you hear all previous restraint melt away as though in a deep flame. "Here."

And his arms around you take you unawares. Brief as it is, the hug lasts for three bewildered heartbeats and one startled, bitten-down gasp and for that moment, just that moment, you have lost all sense of time again.

He tightens his embrace, and you are nothing but rushing blood and forgotten breaths and flailing heart.

"God damn, I don't know what to do with you", he mutters against your neck, the words hot enough to brand your skin. "Hang in there, you maddeningly eloquent fuck."

_I'm—_

"I'm far from eloquent", you say dazedly as he lets go of you and you slump back to the grass with little grace.  _Words escape my control so easily... I can't even think straight, much less talk straight... Especially around you..._

_Karkat..._

Why must your heart beat so fast?

He's on his feet now, but he glances down at you with something that you can believe is amusement. "You're eloquent enough."

_I'm a fool._

You do not watch him step across the narrow stream with ease before disappearing into the trees on the opposite bank; curled up on your side, fighting to hold on to the warmth of his arms, you shield both head and heart and pray that you will be alright this time.  _What else is there to do?_

_I'm a fool._

And anyway... if you close your eyes like this, you can also fool yourself that he looked back at least once.

 

oOo

"Chief, ya know something..."

The two of you have been sitting in relatively comfortable quiet for some time now, so it is with faint displeasure that you glance at Cronus. "I suppose I will know once you tell me."

You can hear a merry laugh not so far away, sliding between the strange gritty noise that only memory tells you is the grind of a skateboard...  _How childlike,_  you think absent-mindedly. Latula's fascination with her wheeled toy is one thing you have never been able to understand, not even when—

_Not even when—?_

But Cronus' voice cuts into your thoughts and you are almost relieved. "I was kinda just roamin' around the other day, thinkin' about my music... yanno, doing my own thing, and I..."

The silence following the sudden dwindling of his sentence is so long that you give him another look, this one significantly more impatient. "And you what?" you prompt baldly, while wondering just why you want to return to the insistent hum of your mind, and why it seems so much less daunting now.

"I ran into another Eridan", he tells you. Everything about him is drooping, even his fins.

"...Ah."  _What do I say to you?_

"He's like my Eridan on the outside, but... kinda different, ya know? I can't really explain it like pointin' out the glasses or the god tier outfit. He's not..."

"I understand", you say dully, because you do. You have seen a few alternate timeline versions of your own ancestor roaming these bubbles. "It's fine. So what did you do on meeting him?"

"Come on, Tunababe! Ride that bad boy all the way down! I'll catch you!"

_Ah, here's the ache, but..._

"I said hi." He's looking down at his knees now. "So did he. I guess that's end a that."

_...but it's not... it's not...?_

And Karkat's face floods your mind, as vividly imprinted upon every sense as if he were right before you, just as you clear your throat and mumble, "I'm sorry. While I admit I am just a little surprised to find that you cared so much, I..."  _I can't imagine what I would—_  "I'm sorry he's gone. ...Do let me know if this loss on your part has cause you to develop new triggers, so I will remember to notify you in the future when our conversations turn to relevant issues..."

"Kankri", Cronus hedges out, his voice halfway between growl and groan, "no triggers. I'm cool. Well, not cool, but no triggers."

"If you insist", you say huffily. "I was only trying to ensure your comfort." For a split second—you know because the tick of your watch says so—you are visited by the mad urge to tell him everything.  _From the beginning... from the first time I spoke to Karkat and made him despise me so, to..._

_To...?_

_From the beginning... but there has to be an end, too..._  Where does your story end? Despite the curiously inoffensive clench of your gut and the sedate, subdued pace of your thoughts, you cannot think of the end just yet.  _I don't even want to think of the middle... I'm only just starting..._

_Only just starting to make a fool of myself all over again..._

Because this is not the first time any of this has happened; you know that only too well now. And yet—

_Why is my heart so light?_

_Give me a stone and I'd kick it. If I were near the stream, I'd probably try to swim in it._  Latula laughs on and your mind's eye can see the swish and flip of her hair streaming out behind her, the practiced bend of her elbows, the taper of her fingertips. You see those elbows bend around Mituna, those fingertips sink into the wild jumble of his hair, and a shiver of the warmth that Karkat left on your skin dances flame-like down your spine.

_Why is the world so bright?_

" _If anything, you look happier",_  Cronus had said, and his own unhappiness had twisted into a look that said he knew.

The smile that plays around your lips is as frightened as it is glad.  _I understand now... Of course you would know, Cronus._

_Fool that I am... a fool all over again..._

_Why is the world so bright?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (◡‿◡✿) reminder that  
> -Nepeta's feelings towards Karkat were only evident when explicitly mentioned in-story  
> -Karkat still figured it out without her saying anything  
> -Kankri is, to say the least, already doing a worse job of keeping it under wraps  
> This should be fun (ʘ‿ʘ✿)


	9. Nine

 

_Nine_

oOo

She's so animated, so visibly delighted when allowed to talk like this... Even her glasses seem to shine a little with the sheer energy of her words, you think as you watch her lips move, considerable fascination mixed in with your disinterest in what she's actually saying. You know there was a time not long ago when your throat would have been prickling by now with words of your own, bursting to talk over her, to engage in some form of friendly— _friendly, really?—_ rivalry with the only person you know who talks as much as you used to.

But this is now, and you are only half listening to Aranea Serket as she prattles on.

"...and really, it's been quite the challenge to find anyone even willing to hear me out when I mention wanting to take a different course of action, much lest assist me in my efforts, so I'm grateful that you think it worth your while..."

"Not at all", you say immediately. "If I could help, the pleasure is all mine. While I am not really willing to be of more active use to you in your... quest... I suppose lending you an ear is not entirely beyond my capabilities."

Her face falls only briefly as you tell her what she must have known from the start—that listening to her is about as far as you will go. But it's a hard fall.

"Are you certain of your decision, Kankri?" You fail to ignore the soft vexation in her voice and stifle a sigh.

"Yes, Aranea. If it makes you feel better, I am sorry. In any case I would surely be nothing short of useless to you in this sort of quest."  _I could hardly even make it through Sgrub. We messed up so badly, all of us... How do I help you search for a cherub in the endless dream bubbles?_

And you are not going to lie to yourself... Now that your own tongue has grown somewhat sedate, her incessant talking is indubitably harsh on the ears.  _Of course, that makes me wonder what I must have been like back when I found nothing wrong with talking just as much as her, if not more, but..._

But there's no need to think back on that.

_That was..._

Her mouth twitches irately. "It would be better than having no one at all."  _...that was before Karkat._

"I know", you hear yourself say; is it in reply to Aranea or yourself? "But better doesn't always mean a happier ending." You are saved from having to explain what you meant— _how could I, anyway?—_ by the shift of her eyes to something over your shoulder and a small smile.

_Someone._

"Fancy seeing you around, Porrim!"

_Oh, god..._

There is no stopping the way your shoulders stiffen. Before you can decide which way to go, what to say, how to excuse yourself—because you know you cannot easily stand within five feet of Porrim at this moment—she's stepped around you with a rustle of her dress and a bounce of her hair. "Nice to see you too, Aranea. How have things been?

"Probably not as good as they could be", says Aranea with an exasperated glance at you; her voice has dropped, leaving it grittier and somehow less comfortable. It means nothing to you.

_I stopped trying to keep track of her quadrants way back when we were still alive._

But, to your dismay, the thought that she might open up her pale quadrant just as easily as the other three does not fail to sting. And you curse yourself and try to be as quiet as possible when you say, "Hello, Porrim."

It's too late. It's already over. The five-second silence between your faces tinges you with red.

"How have you been, Kanny?" And the damage has been done; her voice flows, searing, from the curve of her lip ring to your clenched fists as they twitch at your sides. For once, you can see the end of this conversation only too well, and all you can do is pray that you will walk away before she does.

_Kanny._

"Maybe I don't want to tell you."

 

oOo

By the time you see him, you have already heard him—his inelegant footfalls on dry twigs that snap underfoot with every breath you take. And you have long given up even attempting to hide the occasional shiver that traces your back.  _I'm not afraid of what he'll say._

_I'm just..._

You are hugging your knees to stay warm when he approaches you, but it only makes your bare arms that much more prominent. Were you really expecting him not to raise an eyebrow?

"What's with not wearing that infernal sweater today?" he asks the instant he's within earshot. You peep wretchedly up at him from behind the jumble of your hair, which is more tousled than usual. You had not thought to so much as run your fingers through it after pulling the turtleneck over your head.

"I thought I'd let you see what my long pants are really like", you say feebly, and your smile is not forced. The relief you feel on seeing Karkat is no longer the crashing liquid fatigue that you were once overwhelmed with, but you doubt his face will ever fail to send a little spark through your veins. "They're not as bad as you seemed to think. I don't know what Meenah told you about them, but..."

Already he's kneeling before you, head tilted, eyes boring into yours; thankful as you are for his gaze, it's hard not to let your heart sink.

"You gonna tell me the reason or not?"

"That really is the reason, though."  _Why am I doing this?_  "Look, they're so much nicer than people say... really comfortable, too. It just saves a lot of trouble when you have only one piece of clothing to worry about instead of two. I thought you'd—"  _Why am I doing this?_

"Oh, for fuck's sake!"

Numb with hollow anger, the dull thud of your back hitting the tree behind you is more heard than felt. Your nerves seem to have gathered in your shoulders, where his hands pin you in place, and your face as it heats beneath his questioning glare. Beneath  _his_  face.  _To think... a face that looks so much like mine is the biggest change I have embraced in millennia._

Surely you feel as cold to him as he feels warm to you.

"Did someone take it from you? Was it stolen?"

"What?" you ask blankly.  _Is that what you're worrying about? Worrying?_ "No, it's nothing like that. I just decided not to wear it. I—got tired of wearing the same thing this whole time, to tell you the truth."  _Why am I doing this?_

His hands remain firm on either shoulder. "I'm a lot of things, and stupid may be one of them, sure, but I'm touching you right now. Your skin is fucking freezing."  _Why do your eyes burn like this?_

"I'm—I'm really not cold." And in that moment, you are not lying.

There is very little anger on his face, despite the glower, as he lowers his face until you are almost nose to nose and repeats—quietly this time—"Kankri, did someone take your sweater?"

"Why do you think I'm being targeted?" you find yourself asking, inexplicably scratched by his assumption. "I know they call me things and don't care much for my company, but they wouldn't stoop to outright bullying. I can't even begin to imagine how many triggers I would need to tag—but no, if you really must know, well... it was Porrim made the sweater for me, and I had to—return it to her for a while."

His expression speaks of unsettling skepticism. Your stomach grows a little colder.  _That wasn't a lie._

"She thought it was time she had it cleaned or something", you mutter.

_But this is._

Your skin is brimming with heat where he gripped your shoulders long after he's let you go. Long after he slumps wearily beside you, looking away at last, and sighs, "Apologize to Porrim."

"How'd you know?" you blurt out.  _Why am I doing this?_

He snorts. "Lucky guess aside, you're not much of a liar. So is that what happened? You snapped at her and she got mad and demanded that you give back the sweater?"

Some of the tautness in your limbs dissipates.  _Maybe I'm not that transparent after all._

_Maybe I can hide what's important for as long as I need to..._

"Not quite", you mumble into your knees, trying your hardest to ignore the nauseating mix of relief and guilt that clouds your chest. "Well, you're close, but... she'd never have asked for the sweater. That was my fault. I'm an idiot."

_A fool, to be precise._

"I'm just tired of her... I'm tired of everyone." You hope the pause is long enough that you sound offhand when you add, "Well, except you."

"No shit", he says dryly. "I'm not about to knit you a new sweater though, you know. Are you planning to apologize to her or not?"

You shake your head, feeling glum. "Not anytime soon, I'm afraid. It's cold, but I suppose I deserve to freeze for a while. I don't know what I'd even say to her, we were both so angry..."

_Oh, he's... he's looking at me again._

"Is it really that cold with the sweater off?" he asks at last, and his eyes are as warm as the rest of him.

There is nothing you can say except a glib "Not really, no. I'm sure I can manage; I just need to get used to it. I spent an awful lot of time without the sweater too, after all... it shouldn't be hard to return to that..."

You are cut off by an impatient shuffle, a scowl, and an arm around your shoulders. Then the beat of your heart drowns out what's left, and you let your head drop to your knees just in time to hide the dazed blush that's already simmering there.

But now you cannot see the look on his face when he snaps, "You spent an awful lot of time alone, too. Just because something's easy to get used to doesn't make it the best option."

 _I never did get used to being alone, but... I never was anything_ but _alone until now._

_I'm not alone now though, am I?_

You do not ask him that.

"Are you going to make me sort things out?" you whisper.

His sigh leaves a tepid breeze on your own arms. "If I could I probably would, but... It's not like I'm any better at that shit. So I can't. Stay mad at her. Stay half-naked except for those stupid pants. But there's no point in sitting around shivering like a piss-assed grub while you try to get your guts back into your food barrel."

It's hard not to lean into his touch. It really is.

"But I'll have to be cold again at some point, won't I...? You'll go back to your meteor and I'll have to—"  _I'll be back to waiting. I always come back to waiting._  "I should try and get used to it."

"Actually, it's my dreamself here this time."

You look up sharply. Karkat's eyes are nowhere near yours. They stare listlessly at the stream as you try to think of something to say.

"There's no need to give me that look. You keep talking about how much everything sucks until I'm left wondering if there's anything left to suck out of the straw that happens to be the putrid asshole of this game. This way I don't really have to leave for quite a while—well, unless someone wakes me up, which I don't think is likely. ...I don't talk much to anyone on the meteor these days, you know."

 _I know._   _It's not just me who's been lonely, is it?_

Maybe nothing needs to be said. He's warm and just as alone as you are and he feels delightful against you.

_Even if it's just one more hour, two more hours..._

_When did I stop clinging to the change you brought and start clinging to you instead?_

"What happens if I never talk to Porrim after this?" you laugh softly, quite unable to suppress the image of his arms fully around you again, keeping you warm forever. There is little surprise mingled with the savage comfort that the thought brings.

Karkat shrugs. "I'd probably get the sweater back for you."

"Am I that pitiable?"

You do not sound resentful, but he gives you a quick look nonetheless.  _Still warm. Always warm._

_Karkat..._

"You're just as big a fool as I am", he mutters, and turns away again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reminder that Karkat watches hella romcoms


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize in advance now please leave me to die I know nothing

 

_Ten_

oOo

The ache in your chest is a little different than usual.

"Always fussing, too", he's saying. "But I guess I wouldn't have it any other way in the end. That's just how she is. That's how  _I_  am. It wouldn't really work any other way." And sure enough, his voice carries none of its usual grainy irritation; despite his earlier complaints, it sounds nothing short of affectionate when he speaks of her.  _Of his Maryam._

_Even without trying, he likes Kanaya far better than I will ever like Porrim._

"And you're still not moirails?" you ask mildly, already aware of the answer and equally aware that you and Porrim have never been in a formal moirallegiance either.  _For good reasons too, it would seem._

He raises an eyebrow. "No, we're not. I've told you. Gamzee's my moirail." After a slight pause, he adds, "I pretty much have to be his moirail at this point, to tell you the truth." The implication, though obvious in hindsight, takes you a moment to catch.

 _What do I know about pale tension?_  You try to shrug and then realize—though had you ever forgotten?—that his arm is still around your shoulders. You have long stopped feeling cold.

"I find it hard to comprehend the way your society used to function", you say with ill-disguised reluctance. This has been a sore spot with you for some time now. "Alternian culture was so violent, so blatantly disrespectful of the needs of the individual... It's a wonder your people survived for as long as they did, for that matter..."

He rolls his eyes and says, "It wasn't half as bad as it sounds. We had to learn how to defend ourselves and attack others almost from the moment we were hatched—easy enough to get around once we had that down."

You try to imagine Karkat emerging from the caverns with his fists up, already covered in the blood of a monster or two and raring to go. The image feels surreal enough to tickle until you realize, with a nauseating jolt, that that might have been exactly what happened.

"And your blood?" you ask quietly. "Didn't that pose an obstacle for you?"

_My own blood has been a source of such incredible frustration..._

"I had a lusus", he says, eyes lowered to the ground now. "I had a hive and food and everything I needed to survive. If anyone asked about my blood color, I just didn't tell them. It was as simple as that. As long as I could avoid being culled, it was alright."

"That's more than I can say", you murmur, but for once you are not willing to speak for long on this matter, despite his inquiring eyes. "The term 'culling' had a somewhat less life-threatening meaning in our time, but yes, it happened to me." There's a pause in which you search wildly for something, anything to say that might change the subject, even if marginally. "Rufioh would have been culled too if he hadn't run away. Latula's inability to smell wasn't apparent at the time, but... yes, eventually she would have been slated for culling as well."  _Just... don't ask about me._

"Just because she couldn't smell?" Karkat seems on the verge of saying something more scathing, but backtracks before your raised eyebrows. "I don't—I'm not trying to make her disability into a non-issue. It just seems fucking stupid to me that adults on Beforus would see a serious disadvantage in what's basically a permanent stuffy nose."

"She has problems to deal with that we, having been gifted the privilege of a sense of smell since pupation, cannot comprehend", you say stiffly. "If not in the absolute magnitude of her disadvantage, then the emotional stigma of being eligible for culling certainly puts her on par with the rest. ...That was one of the reasons we began talking, so you know."

Karkat's eyes—still clear gray with no hint of red—are piercing, inquisitive.

"Is that why you grew to pity her then? You bonded over the likelihood of being culled?"

"What do you mean?"  _Pity?_  "If anything, the way she shoulders her burden without letting it impede her endeavors to excel whatever she sees fit—no matter how immature the pursuit—is admirable."  _Pity...?_ Is it pity that dictates your heart now?

"But you say you have flushed feelings for her", he insists. "That's how redrom works. It's based on pity."

_Is that how it works, really? Pity is..._

_It's not pity that I feel for..._

"But"—and you hear yourself speak in that heedless high octave which tells you to shut your mouth before you say too much—"but I don't pity—"  _What am I saying?_

You stop just in time;unnoticed, his eyebrow climbs a little. "You don't pity Latula, is that what you're saying?" Your nod is numb, immediate. "Nah, I'm pretty sure you do somewhere or the other. Maybe in a way that you don't recognize as pity."

_...you._

_It's really happened, hasn't it?_

"No, you misunderstand." You are suddenly very conscious of his arm on your bare skin. "I don't pity Latula. ...I don't—I don't think I'm flushed for her at all right now, I..."  _It's not Latula that I..._

 _What am I_ _doing_ _?_

"I don't know", you say faintly, and by the time you've registered all that your words imply, there's nothing left to feel but the familiar sleepy relief.  _It's really happened. I knew it was going to happen and now it's happened all over again and I don't know what to do._

_I'm no less of a fool than I was the first time._

You are the first to turn away, your stare hard and unmoving on the sun-washed stream.  _For how long did I intend to to hid_ _e_ _anyway?_

"Would you like to talk about something else, Karkat?"

"Not just yet, no."

You look back at him, and his eyes have never left you.

"Our romance is built around either hate or pity", he says in a voice that is nothing if not unsteady. "If your feelings are neither one nor the other, where does that leave you? There's no fifth quadrant, you know." His arm around you, his body against yours; both surging with lonely red blood and bewilderment and curiosity that you will never be able to deflect. Curiosity that, in all honesty, you do not want to deflect.

"You..." Your voice breaks mid-word; you press on anyway, painfully aware of your lips and teeth and tongue and every shaky syllable you push out from the depths of your foolish heart. "You keep talking about romance, but... never about love."

_What am I doing?_

And then he does look away at last. But there is no mistaking the soft tinge of color that's sprung to his cheeks.

"You should know by now that 'love' isn't all it's cracked up to be, numbnuts."

_What a fool I am._

"I do know", you laugh.  _Laugh._  Surely the dry ripple in your voice can be nothing but laughter? "I'd be surprised if anyone knew that better than I do. But..."  _But here I am, still... waiting and hoping and thinking until I can take it no longer..._

_What am I going to do?_

It takes you some time to notice that your shaking is not because of the cold. Even longer to realize that you are not laughing at all. The warmth on your face is tears.

You make no move to brush them away.

"You know me for who I am," you mumble to your kneecaps. "Do you hate me?"  _Please understand. Please. Please tell me your heart's beating as fast as mine._

After a nauseously long pause, he stirs a little and the arm on your shoulders falls away; your resulting shiver skates through your tears, forcing you to choke down a single terrified sob as you hug your knees tighter. "Remember what I once told you?" he asks softly. "I told you that I don't like hating people. It's much easier to love them."

You shake your head before lowering it to your knees, defeated and weary. "That's not how I remember it. You said 'care for them', not love them. You said..."  _Much later, but you did once say that..._  "love is usually just an obnoxious word for pity."

"Usually, sure", he snaps. "Is this just the usual for you?" Is that a hand? You clench your eyes shut and try to bring yourself to shrug it off. You cannot. The heartbeat that travels onto your skin is fluttery and sweaty and anything but composed.

"Then what are you going to do now?" You have never felt quite so wretched. "I don't understand what it is that you want to do."  _I don't understand what you're thinking. I don't know what I'm saying. What am I going to do?_

"What do  _you_ want me to do?"

 _I don't know, Karkat, I don't know..._  But you do know this much. After all, knowing what you want him to do is what makes you such a fool, isn't it?

 _It's now or never._  Never looking up from the ball you've curled into, you whisper, "I've lost control of my heart."  _Again._  "It's idiotic and reckless and—maybe somewhat broken—but it's not confused. I know what I've lost it to—whom I've lost it to, rather."

"What do you want me to do, Kankri?" he repeats, and this time there is no way to unhear the tremble in that voice.

"I want you to take care of it", you say.  _Please._  "P-please."

_I'm a fool..._

But his arms are now around you again before you can begin to cry in earnest—not one but both of them. Tighter and warmer than ever. Pulling you out of yourself until finally, _finally,_  something in your tense limbs and flailing breath gives way and you are little more than one pounding heart pressed against his.

"What's that?" His voice is so close to your ear now... "You want me to take care of your heart?"

There's nothing more to be said; nothing more you  _can_  say. You nod numbly into the crook of his neck, the miserable heat of your own tear-streaked face swirling in the darkness, causing you to redden further.

The thought that his blood is every bit as red as yours floats hazily across your mind. Your chest still aches.

"I'm sorry", you mumble, if only to poke at the tight stillness around you that no whispering stream can pierce.

Why does he sound so gruff when he speaks at last? "If you're—if you're really sorry, you can follow that shit up by doing me a favor."

"A favor?" you ask dazedly; he's warm and quiet around you and he's holding you so close... so very close... but the knot in your stomach is still far from loose, your conversation anything but resolved. "What is it?"

"I can't handle two hearts at once."

Not even the ticking of your watch can be heard in the silence that follows.

"If I'm taking care of yours", he then says, tilting your head up into a fiery gaze that _—for once, even if it's just this once—_ hides absolutely nothing, "you'd better fucking take care of mine."

And something in those unveiled eyes says,  _you're not the only fool here._

_Fool that I am, what am I going to do?_

With your foreheads gently touching and his breath hot against your lips, he asks you, "Think you can manage that, Kankri?"

_Fools that we are, what are we going to do?_

The only thing there is to do. "Yes", you say. "I know I can."


	11. Eleven

 

_Eleven_

oOo

Cronus says nothing for the first half hour or so that the two of you sit side by side, while the faint babble of the others' various activites in the distance wafts around your shared silence, inoffensive and strangely content. Then he turns to you with an expression that you do not care to glance at and says flatly, "Spit it out."

You cannot bring yourself to resist a smile. "I don't have to."

"Well, no you don't, but—for fuck's sake, chief, that look on your face is drivin' me crazy, and not in the good way. You look so far out it's almost stupid. I ain't gonna sit here watchin' your dumb ass grin away for all eternity without botherin' to—"

"The usage of the word 'dumb' to signify mental incompetence, when the latter has nothing whatsoever to do with an inability or unwillingness to speak, is very ableist", you say vaguely.  _And surely I haven't actually be_ _en_ _grinning this whole time...?_  "You should know that by now. Be thankful Kurloz isn't close by; I would have had to address this in far greater detail in the presence of someone more likely than I to be trig—"

It's his turn to interrupt you, and with far less delicacy, but you would be lying if you said you weren't thankful for it. "Spare me the lecture, Kankri, and tell me what's got you floating around like you fell into Leijon's catnip."

"What did I just say?" You turn to him at last; your smile is less rusty than it was a month ago when you had nothing to smile for, but it still feels unnaturally broad across your face, and this seems to be reflected in Cronus' widened eyes. "I don't have to."

 _You already know. You_ should _already know._

He gives you a searching, almost helpless look, and you sigh. "Truth be told, Cronus, I'm not sure if I  _can_  tell you with a clear conscience. Come right down to it, I don't even want to."  _It's a secret—I don't need to ask him to know that it could never be anything but a secret._

_Our secret._

"Woah, man." Is genuine hurt reflected in the way he blinks at your words? "That's harsh a you. I thought we were supposed to be friends."

 _Isn't everyone?_  "We are", you say honestly. "You are one of my dearest friends and I don't want you to think that anything in the past may have served to change things between us. But this is something I'd rather not address with anybody except whom it concerns. And frankly, I'm a little disappointed that you, of all people, haven't figured it out already."

He raises a thin eyebrow, then a bony shoulder, and lets both fall in resignation. "Well, if you put it that way, I guess I'll just have to think harder", he mutters. "But are you at least gonna tell me if this has anythin' to do with why you're not wearin' that cute little sweater a yours any more?"

"Looking cute wasn't exactly my intention", you reply with some stiffness, a little too aware now of the cold. "Keeping warm was. But if you must know, I stopped wearing it because I returned it to its maker. In a—in a completely unrelated incident."

"You gave it back to Porrim?" he asks so swiftly that it's all you can do not to flush with angry embarrassment; is it that obvious? "She'd never take it back herself, so I'm guessin' you got mad at her. That's what happened, isn't it? You got mad and returned the sweater because a some pride thing—"

"Stop."

You think it's the brevity of your response that actually makes him obey.

"I could explain it to you", you continue, looking away again, "but you're not far off the mark, so let me save myself the trouble and just say yes, that's a fairly accurate summary of what happened. Now please refrain from asking me any more questions on the subject."

You see him toss you an amusingly serious sort of wink from the corner of your eye. "You got it, chief. But doesn't it get cold for you? I mean, I remember how you wouldn't fuckin' clam up about it earlier, and now you're just sittin' here as chill as dammit, so I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say you're too fuckin' happy to feel cold. Which is messed up, but hey, if it keeps you warm."

"Well, as much as I hate to admit it, my flesh is far from impervious to the cold", you sigh ruefully. "It's one of the things I both like and dislike about us having retained all our sensory capabilities in the afterlife." The very thought makes you tremble with the need to run back to your hideaway by the stream, even though you know he will not be there... Not now, not for many nights to come. It has been mere hours since you saw him last.

And yet the glittery bubble of happiness within you refuses to take a puncture.

"Need some help coverin' up? I got some extra shirts that should fit you well enough..."

"I—no, that won't be necessary." It's hard to keep yourself from sounding startled.  _What would Karkat think if I wore Cronus' shirt to our next meeting..._  You have covered a wide range of topics during your long, lazy conversations together, but "his" Ampora was not one of them. Something tells you, however, that his opinion would not be a high one.

"Thank you for the offer, though", you add, trying not to regret your refusal already. Cronus gives an uncharacteristic grimace and then, without warning, leans closer with an outstretched arm as though seeking to put it around you; you shy away on reflex, looking inquiringly at him.

"Ah, cut that out", he snaps. "You're cold, aren't ya?"

You believe that if you concentrate hard enough, you really can feel the weight of Karkat's arm on your shoulders still, heavy and warm and comforting. "Not very."

"Still cold, though. Lemme warm you up for a bit."

"I hope you realize that you're naturally a lot colder than I am?" you say, eyeing him skeptically. "That's not even casteism, it's a fact. I'm sure this is a far warmer alternative for me."  _I just..._

He makes a noise of impatience. "Chief, do ya have an actual problem with me touchin' you?"

"Not really, but..."  _I just want Karkat._

"Then sit tight for a bit." You obey reluctantly, deciding that beggars cannot be choosers, and let Cronus shuffle around until he's sitting behind you. With his arms slung loosely around your neck, his face right beside yours, all you can feel is a sense of wonder at how little even this moves you... And how different things would have been were it Karkat in his place.

But as much as you hate to admit it, even your seadweller friend's skin is warmer than your own right now, and you find yourself leaning back into his embrace with poorly restrained gratitude. "Sorry if this isn't what you'd prefer", he says suddenly in your ear, making you start a little. "It's been a while since I gotta hug anybody at all."

"I don't particularly mind", you murmur. "But as for the lack of physical contact, I'm sure entire sweeps tend to pass between trysts in a place like this?"

"Well... yeah. I'll give you that, boss." His breath is so much cooler than Karkat's that you can almost mistake it for a breeze. "But you tend to miss what you recently had a lot more than wishin' for somethin' you've never really known."

_Ah, Cronus, you don't know the half of it..._

_But he does. And when he figures it out, he'll understand._  "I should leave in a while, though. I have—I need to be somewhere."  _Do I? He's not going to be back for a while; we both know that, and I respect that. He has_ —not even your cloudy contentment can save you from the sharp pang you feel— _he has a life to lead while I wait for him._

_We know that, both of us._

_But we also know that that isn't going to stop me from putting everything I have into the wait._

"You would", mutters Cronus. "One a these nights I'm gonna find out what's up with you, Kankri."

"You should have done so by now", you reply with playful reproach, just as the voices in the distance give way to a boisterous cry that is only too familiar to your ears.

"Hey, Kankz!"

_Oh..._

You disengage yourself from Cronus' arms with little ceremony and turn around on your spot among the periwinkle grass just in time to catch the smile that was once so dear to you. And it is with considerable relief that you find yourself able to look her in the eye.

"What's shaking, Kan? We never talk these days." And there's the twist in her mouth that you know so well, a gesture which led your heart to thump itself sore against your ribcage not very long ago... Now it seems only that; only a pretty look for a pretty face, neither more nor less.  _There's always something ridiculous about the emotions of those whom one no longer loves._

But it was not love; you know that now. You have only loved once.

"Well", you hedge out, choosing your words with care, "We never talk much at all. Surely you realized that."  _It's been very, very long since we could talk without something or the other getting in our way. Things might not have changed for you since then, but they certainly have for me._ And how they have changed... every unmoved minute is a wonder; every calm heartbeat a blessing.

Latula's eyes, clear white like yours behind her red glasses, seem to flicker briefly to Cronus before resettling on you. "That's no excuse!" she says with an unmistakeable pout. "You're always busy talking to people about your justice shtick, I'd just feel really out of place butting in."

 _You weren't complaining about my justice "shtick" when it gave you the validation you needed._  "And am I supposed to feel any more at home, butting in when you're with Mituna?"

You don't have to keep looking at her to know the look on her face—one of blank, almost childlike hurt, both justified and not, and certainly none of your concern.  _I only spoke the truth._  You get to your feet in as dignified a manner as possible and try not to shiver before her.

"See you later, Latula. Please keep Latula entertained, Cronus. I really should be going." The knowledge that you're leaving her with the needy and usually disrespectful Cronus does not sit too well with you, but she is more than capable of dealing with him should he cross a line and all three of you know it. Maybe that's why there is no real gladness in your friend's startled "Yeah, sure" as you walk away with a gait entirely devoid of slink or sulk.

 _I really am starting to leave this all behind,_  you think, your eyes and feet so accustomed to the path you're taking that you can barely feel them doing their job.

_For what?_

For a place among the trees with flowing water and dappled sun, heavy with words that you need not say and emotions that you need not control. And there, surrounded by the unspoken secret that is no longer yours alone, weak from your own foolishness, you will wait.

_It all comes back to waiting._

_It all comes back to you._

The watch that nobody seems to notice—not even with your sweater off and its garish pink flowers so loud against your skin—feels lighter with every tick, as though approaching a beloved master.

For a brief moment, you allow yourself the wild but tempting hope that he really will be there, that he'll turn at the sound of your footsteps and give you that curious unsmile and receive one of your own in return and that's all you will need to do because it'll be alright, he'll  _be there._  And then it's gone, and the only certainty you have left is the wait ahead of you.

And yet your heart swoops just a little when you peer around the last row of trees skirting the stream and look first left, then right, and Karkat is nowhere to be seen.

 _It's just as well._ You flop inelegantly down onto the dry grass, thinking,  _this should teach me not to get my hopes up._

 _I haven't learned at all._  And you probably never will.

Because as long as you have him, you have no reason to learn. Not when he's calling your name like this. Not when your head has shot up from your arms and you're looking across the stream with wide, almost frightened eyes, because you could have sworn that was his voice. And you are right; of course you are. You could never mistake his voice for anything else.

"I'm here", he says impatiently, emerging from the tree line on the opposite bank, his scowl intact and as perfunctory as ever. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon, to be honest—do you ever even leave? I just don't have much to do back on the meteor anyway so I thought I'd take a chance with my actual body, because jesus fuck keeping a dreamself in these bubbles is—"

"You called", you hear yourself say with a touch of wonder.

_Just how long ago was it that I was the one calling to you?_

"What else were you expecting me to do, sing? My throat's not exactly well suited to music." He makes a beckoning sort of motion with his hand, as though inviting you across; you shake yourself out of your thoughts and scramble to your feet with near embarrassing immediacy, thankful that the banks are shallow and the stream itself is little more than a trickle.

_You called... you're calling me._

An aching heart has never felt so good.

Up close, he looks unchanged and yet somehow lovelier for the few hours that you were apart, and the urge to tell him so nearly gets the better of you. But nothing, nothing can stop you from throwing your arms around him.

_Why should I ever learn?_

Why indeed, when he holds you like this, so awkwardly and yet as though his very heartbeat is inseparable from yours?

"Easy there", he says quietly, though he shows no signs of letting go. "God damn, how long did you expect to wait anyway?"

 _For as long as it took._ "I don't know", you mumble into the wispy warmth of his hair. "I just assumed it'd be a while."

"Well, stop assuming."

_Waiting is all I've had for myself, Karkat._

He raises his head to give you a fleeting glare before saying, "Just listen, because I'm not going to repeat this. I won't stay away for long, ever. To be honest, I can't. So stop assuming."

"You can't?" you ask blankly, unprepared for the rush of color that this brings to his cheeks.

"You heard me." He coughs and steps away at last, leaving you to fight back a fresh shiver. "Let's take a walk, it'll probably warm you up a little. And if you behave maybe I'll give you something when I have to go."

 _Give me something...?_  "A new sweater maybe?" you ask mildly in a moment of playful curiosity, half joking and half not and entirely taken aback by the deadpan look he gives you. "Well, yeah, but that's not what I meant. Now let's go."

"Wait, wha—?"

"We've been through this, for fuck's sake! Are you coming with me or not?"

 _I'll go anywhere with you if you call me._ _I'll never need to learn._ You can barely nod in response, but something in the red-faced way he nods back at you says that he already knows your answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *lies face down on floor* Sorry this took a while... real life's been incredibly troublesome of late and stuff and things and writing kinda took a backseat for a bit hhhh  
> I feel this is absolutely awful and the color's all wrong again but meh at least it's hella long to make up for the delay and the next few chapters should be bette r gomen nasai


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chiyos_dad_lying_in_a_pool_of_tears.gif
> 
> i'm so tired holy cow. gomen nasa i

 

_Twelve_

  
_  
_oOo

"Where are we going?" you don't ask. You genuinely do not care. What matters is that he's walking with you, not ahead of you but right  _with_  you, his eyes on the grassy forest floor and one hand thrust loosely in a pocket: the walk of one more invested in the journey than the destination.

His other hand hangs by his side, swinging slightly in time to his leisurely pace, and you are visited by an urge as ridiculous as it is overwhelming. Every second, every faithfully measured tick of your watch against your pulse feels like an hour, every inch between the two of you a fresh mile.

"How cold is it out here?" he asks presently, his split-second eye contact almost as palpable as touch.

You are the first to look away. "It's chilly every now and then, but not unbearable. I've been managing."

And all at once you find yourself giving in; all at once his hand is in yours—warm and callused and nothing alike beyond the marrow of his bones. His fingers give just one startled twitch before falling limp and then, without warning, lace themselves between your own trembling digits. The brief squeeze you feel is probably meant to be reassuring, but your face is too flushed to turn to his, too full of a fought-down smile.

"I'm feeling quite cozy at the moment, though", you mumble.

_Thank you._

"Wait."

The glance you manage to sneak at him shows the usual carefully arranged non-expression: a firm lip and a faint, meaningless frown.  _Wait?_  "What is it?" You stop walking exactly two seconds after he does, your linked hands pulling you back to his side as you raise an inquiring eyebrow. "Are we where you intended to go?"

"I didn't intend to go anywhere", says Karkat, his frown deepening for the briefest of moments before easing out again. "I just thought we'd take a walk instead of stewing by the stream as usual. But I'd—" Why do his eyes flit away as he speaks? "—I'd rather sit down now. Just just for—for a while. If that's fine with you."

You shrug obligingly.  _Surely he knows that I don't care what we do in the slightest as long as it's us doing it._

"Right here, then?" You drop to your knees on the grass at his quick— _impatient?—_ nod and are immediately joined by Karkat, who is avoiding your eyes beyond all doubt now, staring sullenly at your exposed throat with a sort of determined fascination that you find strangely familiar. Your free hand comes up to absently brush against your collarbones before you have entirely registered that you no longer have a sweater neck to tug at.

"Don't", he snaps the moment you open your mouth; you close it again and try in vain to communicate your confusion through your eyes.  _These eyes are not exactly suited to expression,_  you think ruefully, as he continues, "Don't say anything and don't move. Just hold still for a bit."

The instant you nod in resignation, he shuffles forward, inch by awkward inch—because there's no other word for it, really; he's incredibly, irresistibly,  _delightfully_  awkward—until he's close enough to put his arms around you... or for you to put your arms around him. But you've been asked to stay still, and you do so with increasing reluctance as he draws even closer, your breathing shallow and heart aquiver.

When he raises a hand to your face, cupping it gently enough to set off a lingering ache within, he's looking into your eyes again. This time his gaze is so naked it feels almost raw in its freshness. "It's just easier like this. God damn, I hoped I'd grow taller, but this isn't how I imagined being reassured of the fact." Why the tremble in his voice? Why does it match the one in your chest?

"What are you talking about?" you ask dazedly, close enough to him now that your breath mingles with his in the sliver between your faces.  _Oh... I wasn't supposed to talk either..._ Your eyes drift shut of their own accord despite how vulnerable this leaves you, and now there is nothing you  _can_  say.

"Hell if I know", he murmurs.

The kiss is more than the soft brush of lips against parted lips; much, much more. It's the way that, just for that lilting moment, you find all of your senses pulled to the surface, brimming with energy and need and pure, unflickering joy. It's the touch of his hands—one still tight in yours, the other now winding itself into your hair—and their red-blooded warmth against your skin. It's the grass beneath you, springy and virginal; it's every leaf on every benevolent tree. It's the angle that your back makes with the ground when he presses forward and you lean back and it's your grip on his arm, the exact texture of his shirt beneath your shaking fingers, the summery morning air beneath a long-forgotten sun and its eddy in your lungs as you try to remember to breathe.

And yes, it's the abruptness of his mouth on yours, all clumsy bravado and unpracticed impatience and full of a self-assurance that you could shatter with a single word; it's his lips moving slowly and so very hesitantly in time to the hammering heartbeat in your ears, his own breath growing shorter as it grazes your face again and again... It's his touch and his embrace and it's him, it's all him—all of your aimless soul and unsteady heart gathered perfectly in one shakily uttered name as he pulls away at last.

"Karkat", you whisper with everything you have, everything you are, and in that instant you have never felt more alive.

He remains silent for a time, while the heat between you ebbs and flows like liquid sunshine, and you can't help but give a quiet laugh when your noses bump together. Then he says, rather plaintively, "You're too tall."

 _It's not often I hear that._  "Well then, catch up to me", you say, "and I'll tag my height privileges in the meantime."

Before you have to open your eyes, to register the incredulous amusement on his face and hear his dry response, you raise your hand—the one that's still tightly laced with his—and press a stiff, dry kiss to his knuckles. It's the only way you can ignore the large part of you that's screaming for a sequel, for you to pull him in again and show him just what you have managed to learn with experience and observation, for you to see how much of it has been undone by the sheer force of your need.

_But this is not a competition, and Karkat..._

"Now that's just being cheesy!" he mutters. "Let's keep walking?"

"Do we have to?"  _There's a reason certain things grow to be seen as cheesy._ "I thought we weren't going anywhere", you add with a touch of diffidence as you finally let your world swim back into view; sure enough, the world as you see it is nothing but Karkat, and you are far from displeased. "Can't we stay here?"

_...and Karkat is not someone I need to upstage. And yet..._

"And do what? I sure as orgy-loving fuck hope you don't expect me to give a repeat performance. There's only so much I can tolerate."

"Tolerate...?"

You did not mean to echo his words out loud, but you cannot quite unfeel the sharp twinge his phrasing gives you; he catches sight of your expression and balks visibly. "No, I mean—ah, fuck. That's not how I meant to put it at all, I just..."

"You just what?" you ask dully, turning away from your thoughts.

It's a while before he replies, and when he does, his voice is lower than yours. "Bear with me", he says to the red-tinged curve of your neck. "I'm so used to shielding my reactions with embarrassment and anger that my words get the best of me if I use them without thinking. Talking straight isn't as natural as they make it look like in romcoms, and certainly not as easy."

When you stay silent, he adds—with obvious reluctance, his words staccato and somehow thick-sounding, "I messed up because of that the first time round, because I thought I could manage, because I was a fucking idiot—a fool." Bound to the tone of his voice you also hear,  _I can't afford to be a fool this time._

_I'm clutching at my foolishness, and he's fleeing his._

Why does this only make the pain worse, until you find yourself wondering you would have preferred him to shout? Is it because you cannot possibly imagine him living a life with every emotion shielded, every response strained through the slats of his defenses until that was all he knew? Is it because, despite your facade of thick-skinned doggedness, on several levels you understand exactly what he's talking about?

_He surrounds himself with volume and abrasion... I chose quantity and persistence. What more difference is there, really?_

"You 'tolerate' my own manner of speech quite well, you know", you say, still quiet, still very aware of the power of a spoken word.  _I dedicated my living existence to the eradication of hurtful words. Who knows what they're capable of better than I do?_

He flinches— _as though shrinking from a brandished weapon,_  you think at first. Then you remember that, faced with a weapon, he would sooner fight than flee.

_He's so much younger than I am, and yet so much older..._

"I don't", he says at last. "You know I don't. I tell you to shut up the moment it gets too much for me."

" _Pyrope, fucker."_

"Indeed", you chuckle, at once astonished and thrilled at how distant the memory now seems to you, how feeble the word that he had once rightly claimed would trigger you both. "Then tolerate this instead."

This time when the urge swells again, insistent and throbbing, you give in. Maybe there's surprise in the little gasp he lets out before you've fully claimed your kiss; maybe there's none and he saw it coming a long way off, because in the end he's the one who watches romantic comedies, and you were never very good at subtlety. But then you feel an arm around you pulling you closer—and unmistakeably lower—until his back hits the ground with a thump, and you feel the warm thumping reality of his heartbeat against your chest, and you know that competition or not, you could never hope to upstage him.

 _And yet, that's a rather frantic heartbeat,_  you think dimly, even as your lips continue to tease his and he matches your movements, this time in near perfect tandem. You have long stopped wondering about your own madly fluttering pulse; there is no escaping it now. Not when you can hear its rushing in your ears and its undulating rhythm from your fingertips to the roots of your hair, drowning out everything except the name it answers to.

"Kankri", he's mumbling against the corner of your mouth, and you can feel every gentle vibration travel from his tongue to your skin. All you can muster up in response is a "yes?" as you let your head hang over his shoulder, forehead pressed against the grass, eyes still shut and breath forgotten.

"What are we doing, Kankri?" he asks faintly. His hand finally slips out of your laced fingers, leaving a familiar tingle in its wake, only to rest on your back as he slings both arms around you in a loose, almost absent-minded hug. You shake your head and his hair tickles the side of your face.

"I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't particularly want to know either, and I'm sorry for that as well."

"Fair enough", he replies, some of the volume returning to his voice as you recover your own breath. "Then let me put it this way. Look at me."

You oblige and try not to acknowledge your distant sense of unease when you see that his eyes have grown impenetrable again. And with the last of his walls firmly in place, he asks, "You've been around here for longer than anyone cares to express. What are you doing with me?"

Your first impulse—to crack a wry smile and say that that's ageist—goes mercifully unheeded, but renders you quite incapable of forming an answer. You put very little effort into searching for one. Oh, there are words in your irrepressible mind, thousands of them: too many of them. And you know that no possible combination of those words would help you convey your response to this boy who is already so far ahead of you on the journey you could never complete, so unsure of himself, so alone... Karkat and his life that has so little to do with you; Karkat, passionate, fiery, and so  _so_  lovable.

You shake your head helplessly; to your relief, his expression softens. "I'll rephrase the question again. Will you answer it then?"

"I'll try", you say with a surety that you do not feel.

"What am I to you, really?"

_Oh..._

You want to say too many things this time, and have too few words; you want to say,  _You're the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins. The reason I move and the reason I speak._ You want to say,  _I was nothing before I met you—a hollow effigy trying to grasp at a parody of my life, unable to move forward, trapped beyond description—and you freed me._ You want to summon every adjective at your disposal, to weave them into tapestries and skies as you see fit, to place them at his feet so he finally understands.

But when you choose your answer, it's one shivering word. "Everything", you say simply, "you're everything." And if there are tears in his eyes now, you know he will never bring himself to admit them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not go [here](http://lemonyfricket.tumblr.com/tagged/fmt-commentary/chrono) if you're looking for quality author's notes on the chapter because I am an absolute butt when I talk about WIPs
> 
> But ye I'm glad I got this up at last because god damn I'm exhausted


	13. Twelve Point Five

_Twelve Point Five_

oOo

Everything sounds easy when Karkat says to do it. You realize this only some hours after he leaves—or at least, that's what your watch tells you; that it's been hours even though it feels like seconds and an eternity at once—as you involuntarily jerk out of your third torpid doze so far, unable to fall asleep and unwilling to stay awake lest you start thinking again. You are still lying flat on your back beside the stream in the kind of discontented reverie that you will gradually come to associate with his departures; his words still swim across the surface of your mind not unlike the benign patches of sunlight on the water, rippling and shimmering but very much there.

Your watch says it's been four hours since you last parted ways. When you hold your wrist up to your face, the red sleeve seems to leap out at you; had you already grown so accustomed to going without?

 _It's like I grew an extra appendage and then had it chopped off and grown again._  This time, however, you quite welcome the growth of said appendage. Your time in the bubbles with only your pants on did a decent job of reminding you just how cold it could get, and just how hard it was for you to pretend you were alright with it for a change, but you know you would have happily worn this sweater even if it was boiling hot.

For one thing, it's not the one Porrim made you, which is saying a great deal. For another...

"Keep warm, stupid. If you freeze to death in here I'll kill you." And before you could open your eyes to see what he'd thrust into your hands, before you could point out that the possibility of you dying in either contingency seemed remote seeing as you were already dead, he was gone. His footsteps had died away in quick, hard thuds and you had looked down to find

 _He went to Porrim,_  you remember thinking for one wild moment,  _he actually went to Porrim and apologized on my behalf and got the sweater back_

a red turtleneck sweater with more than a passing resemblance to the one you had so vehemently cast off and were trying not to regret. Closer examination reveals that it's not quite the same—there is a distinctly more comfortable feel to this one, something that makes a world of difference despite the visual similarity. While you can't pinpoint it yet and are in no hurry to do so, the fact remains that for once you have never been happier to wear something over your "ridiculous" pants.

 _There's nothing ridiculous about them. I'm ridiculous._ You twist to your side and listlessly watch the grass sway in time to your breath.  _Just four hours..._

Just four hours since he left, abruptly and with pronounced awkwardness as always, saying, "Keep warm, stupid." You'd nodded even before beginning to open your eyes, without understanding what he was talking about, simply because he could have asked you to stand on your head until he got back and you would probably have done so. There is none of the air of doing someone a favor or service when you tell yourself this; if Karkat tells you to do something, at that moment there is little else you want to do.

He makes it sound as natural as blink or breath. "Keep warm", he said, and here you are in a sweater again—in  _his_  sweater, which is what makes all the difference in the end—lying under as much sunlight as your skin and eyes can withstand, warm and comfortable and unable to sleep because it's just been four hours and you're ridiculous.  _A fool._  You've called yourself that enough times by now that the word has begun to lose its meaning.

The memory of his lips against yours rises every now and then, unbidden but anticipated, and the heat that this invariably brings to your cheeks surely counts as some warmth too?

_Maybe I could just lie here until he returns. It's warm here, after all. I'm just doing what he asked..._

You curl tighter into yourself, a ball of black and woolly red, and give your watch one last moody glance before closing your eyes again. Four hours and ten minutes. How many times has his heart beat in his chest in that period, and how rapidly?

In the end, it's the chorus of your own gently thumping heart and ticking watch that lulls you to sleep. They are not so unalike, after all: both belong to him. His words and the warmth and the tick-thump-tick swim around and inside you, your mind muttering weakly,  _I don't have to think right now._

But when you awake and your thoughts return, they will return to Karkat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm back a full month and a half past my projected return date, but back nonetheless;; I am truly sorry for the wait, everyone; real life has been kicking my ass of late and admittedly my fics have not been high on the priority list during my hiatus. However, for now I seem to be as wholly back as is possible so I can tentatively encourage you to expect the usual speedy-ish updates on this piece from now. Thank you for your patience, dear readers!
> 
> I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, but as you can probably tell from the numbering scheme it is less of an actual chapter and more of an interlude in any case. I just had to upload SOMETHING, this fic has been eating me alive despite my inability to actually write it oops;; but yes! Regular updates are back in business and I am so sorry for the delay;;


	14. Thirteen

_Thirteen_

oOo

You wake to the soft sliding of grass across your cheek, a sensation somewhere between itch and tickle. The thought that you could lie here like this indefinitely—or until Karkat returns—is both reassuring and gloomy. For an unmeasured amount of time you proceed to do just that; you are warm and comfortable and have nowhere to go. This is as productive as you are going to get for a while.

So it's not until much later that you finally raise a wrist to your bleary eyes and squint at your watch. Eleven hours, it says, eleven hours since you nodded off: both less and more than you'd been hoping for. You're too disoriented to sigh just yet.  _Who would hear me, anyway?_

"Awake?"

Karkat would have been on his feet in a split second. You merely give a startled jerk and twist in the direction of the voice, still flat on your back, hoping against hope and already well aware that the voice was nothing like his. "Huh? Who—"

"Here", it says, and this time your eyes find Damara, perched on the bank further downstream with her legs dangling over the edge. All you can offer her in response is a numb stare. No wonder you couldn't place the voice at first—she sounds decidedly unguarded when not speaking in her native dialect, possibly thrown off by the unfamiliarity of her own words.  _I know a thing or two about using language as a defense_ , you think wryly. Her insistence on speaking East Beforan suddenly makes a lot more sense to you.

"Damara, what are you doing here?" You are unsure of what else to say. At some point over the months that you've been using this place as a getaway, it stopped occurring to you that other people might think to do the same. She is the first sentient thing you have encountered in this memory that is not yourself or Karkat; the realization that you have no right to resent the fact is wholly new.

She gives no reply at first, only a frosty look. "What  _you_  do here?" she asks at length, raising a foot from the water and examining it with a listless eye. Her shoes are carelessly tossed to one side, her socks to another. "This home. I always come."

_Home?_  "This is East Beforus?" your surprise is obvious even to your own years. "I've been visiting this exact spot for..." A quick mental calculation leaves you momentarily speechless. "...almost half a sweep", you say when you find your words again. "Eight months in terms of living time... yes. Eight months."  _It's been eight months. Dear god, I've been at this for eight months._  "And this is still my first time seeing you here."

An inelegant shrug as she lets her leg drop back into the stream with a little splash. Even from your disadvantaged angle on the ground, she looks very small.

"You, I see. One time. Two time. You not look—" she makes an expansive gesture. "Too busy."

_Of course I never looked around._ You can feel your face heating.  _Why would I bother, when all I want to look at is either in front of me or a world away?_

' _Busy'... Did she see me with Karkat...?_

"So this is your memory then, is it?" you ask hurriedly. "I've been wondering whose it was for some time now."

She shakes her head with a look that's more grimace than grin. "Whose, then?" Something in her manner has grown harder at your question; she raises another leg and lets it fall, the water rising up to darken the hem of her skirt this time.

"He need hiding place, yes?" she barks. "Like you."

"I'm sorry?"

"He hide here. Behind trees, under trees—forest is big, I small. I cannot find him. I think maybe I be careful, and I—" She's making gestures again, plainly running out of words; one sentence later she's given up entirely and spewing rivers of unintelligible but vaguely threatening East Beforan at you. You push yourself upright and wait for the flow to ebb with bewildered impatience.

"Damara", you say presently, when she shows no signs of stopping. "I sympathize—if that's what I'm supposed to do here—but I can't understand a word you're saying. If you intend to elicit a certain reaction from me, it's quite inconsiderate to express yourself in a language I don't speak", you add with some reproach. Her very demeanor—even the fact that she's talking to you at all—seems to demand response. You are tired and lovesick and alone.

"No need", she says from between clenched teeth. "No need reaction."

"I just think it's counter-intuitive; knowing that you're surrounded by people who have no knowledge of your tongue, and yet insisting that we participate in conversations as if the language barrier is no obstacle to easy communication—"

She cuts you off with a laugh that is both mad and mirthful and rings hollowly in your chest.  _"I insist we participate in conversations"_ , she mimics with perfect intonation, dropping her voice and lengthening her inflections to match yours. "But  _you_  come to me. You talk—you ask—I not answer well. Your conversation. My reply. I never want talk—I want leave alone. Leave alone and  _happy_ —"

The words are out of your mouth before you can think. "Alone and happy with Rufioh?" you finish for her; the fleeting look of outrage tells you more than any of her broken cardcastle sentences. "It's his memory, isn't it, Damara?"

It's hard to feel triumphant at your deduction when her bony frame slumps, her face now carefully deadpan. Then just as the guilt (a defiant, defensive sort of guilt) starts sinking in, she turns to you with a grin far too wide to be genuine—or completely sane.

"Rufioh's memory. Yes."

You nod numbly.  _She's never been right in the head..._

But you already know that that's not true. Though you two have had little by way of meaningful conversation for reasons besides the language barrier, you know Damara. You've known her for at least as long as you've known anyone else in your portion of the bubbles, except perhaps Latula... While the memories of what it was like to be alive are faint as an old watermark, you cannot get away from the actual events of your past; they've shaped every inch of your afterlife. And you do not forget that there was a time when Damara was stable and sweet-faced and—if you can take her word for it—happy.

As though from a great distance, you watch her draw her bony legs out of the water; her skirt rides up her thighs as she does so, and were you facing her you'd have received an eyeful of her cleavage when she bends over to pull on her socks. Despite this, there is no air of hypersexualization about her, none of her usual lascivious coquettishness. Her movements are as straightforward as a child's.

_We're all children anyway. We're children who never got to grow up and it's not all it's cracked up to be._

She catches your eye when she straightens up and raises a heavily penciled brow; too late, you realize what your idle gaze must have looked like to her.

"Kankri. Get laid."

The statement is so devoid of innuendo despite its actual content that you can do little but blink. "I'm  _sorry?"_

Her knees bend again and she sits back down, only the tiniest bit closer to you this time. You continue to flounder. "If this is about the fact that I happened to be looking at you while you—I didn't intend for my attention to be interpreted as physical attraction—you may have some aesthetic charm, yes, but I—"

"Shh."

_Like that's ever worked,_ you think automatically, but to your amazement your mouth stops moving. She's shaking her head sagely. "Good stress relief. Get laid."

When did your face get so red?

"I'm not under stress", you say—another reflex, unsuppressed this time. It may not be far from the truth, though; is it stress that you feel when Karkat returns to the world of the living—

_to his world_

—and leaves you behind here, impatient and anxious and alone? You have thought of several words to describe the feeling, and while none of them have proved adequate so far, stress is not a term you would apply here in the present circumstances.  _Stress has always been linked with time, for me... the sensation of running out of time._ You ran out of time with Latula, and that had been stress all right.  _Now I have all the time I need..._

But you don't, do you? All you have is, by Karkat's grumbling admissions, a little over a sweep. Three human years, thirty-six months... of which you have already lost at least eight.

"I don't go around sleeping with whomever I think is attractive", you mutter with what you hope is righteous indignation. It's hard to muster up any heat when your mind is aquiver again, at its epicentre a single thought:  _it's been eight months._

_Besides, I already have a matesprit._ It never occurs to you to say so. He has never been anything remotely close to a mere matesprit.

_What is he, then?_

"Then don't", she shrugs. "Find who think  _you_  attractive."

"I'm not sleeping around for stress relief, Damara", you say wearily, fighting the urge to draw your knees up and rest your head on them. Karkat wouldn't have held it against you... then again, you wouldn't have wanted to hide your face from Karkat, no matter how little he seemed to look directly at it. "That's ridiculous and escapist. I don't know if it works for you, or if it merely serves as enough of a distraction that you're able to focus on something besides the matter at hand, but it's really no long-term solution for any problems I might be facing—and I never said I had any to begin with."

Again, her snort of derision says more than her words do.  _Do you take me for an imbecile?_  it laughs, and you hear it with the clarity of a war horn.

Her voice, however, betrays no scorn. "You see me. I see you."

And again, you are reduced to nodding.

Were you always this transparent? Is it clear to anyone with whom you exchange more than a single perfunctory sentence? Is that what they see, then; past your wicker cage of words and hashtags, straight through to your callused and blackened heart? Has Damara read you with the same ease you found when reading  _her?_

"I should talk less." Only her look of blank surprise tells you you've spoken out loud again. Too numb to clarify—or to want not to clarify—you hang your head for a moment, then begin to stand.

Conversations with anyone who isn't Karkat leave you feeling things you think you can do without. "I'll see you later, Damara. It's been nice having this chat with you."

"Stop."

Against your better judgment, you turn back towards her one last time; the faintest of smiles, cool and distant, is playing at her lips. "I go."

"No, I couldn't possibly tr—"

"I go", she repeats, this time with a jerk of her head, "because he come."

Your eyes are far ahead of her pointing finger already, and even before you've processed what  _he come_ could signify coming from Damara—Damara to whom a  _he_  should normally have meant someone else altogether—your heart gives a leap that seems to lodge it somewhere in your constricting larynx.

There is no leave-taking on her part, only a subdued rustling of grass as she disappears into the trees. It's just as well. You are rooted to the spot, your eyes hugging the opposite bank of the little stream, waiting for the footsteps that you cannot sense yet, waiting for him to emerge. You would not have heard her say bye.

 


	15. Fourteen

_Fourteen_

oOo

Something makes you whip behind a tree just before he emerges.

Unseen, you tiptoe backward until you are too deep in the painted shadows for him to spot you from the opposite bank—but not so deep that you cannot make out his face, his features, his expression. His scowl is in its usual place, operating in a detached sort of way between his eyebrows, and his mouth is set in a thin, hard line. Only then does it strike you that you have never before had the opportunity to study his movements when not in direct relation to you.

He was further downstream when you saw him first, not far from where Damara was sitting.  _Where is she now?_ You think of the way she bent to pull on her shoes and socks, the look she gave you; it was no longer knowledge of where people's eyes landed on her body, it was expectation. Had it been anyone else in your place, anyone at all, she would likely have been right.

_Even if it were Karkat?_

Shaking your head to try and throw off the image of Karkat staring unabashedly at Damara's exposed upper thighs, you realize he's moving closer. When did he cross the stream?

"Kankri?"

You start violently, your already racing heart picking up more speed until it's an insistent buzz in your ears, but no—he's still looking this way and that with his deeply unhappy face, and you are well hidden.  _He's... he's calling out for me?_

His monochrome figure approaches your hiding spot... gives a split-second pause... moves past. Under a brighter sun, you would have felt his shadow on your face.

"Kankri?" he says again, less shout than mumble. You can bear it no longer.

"I'm here."

The brief softening of his expression when you step out does your heart a fair bit of good. There's no fighting down your smile anyway, is there? "I believe you called", you say quietly, after a moment's silence in which the stream burbles on beside you. It's not really a joke. You would come running in a heartbeat if you heard him call and you cannot hate yourself for it, not now.

He looks away, but not before you see the creeping flush on his face. "So you were spying on me? That's creepy as all hell." You're spared the indignity of apologizing when he continues, "Never mind that, though. I probably don't have much time today. Probably, mind you. Things back there are apeshit right now and I can't decide if I want to go back as soon as possible or stay the fuck away fucking forever."

 _Things back there._  He drops to the ground and sprawls out on his back, all messy hair and bony young limbs, and looks peevishly up at you from behind his eyelashes. "You just gonna keep standing there?"

"Ah", you say blankly. "No. Sorry." The way he said  _things back there—_ things back in his life, a life that has nothing to do with you and your emotions—is creeping slowly into your stomach like a leaden frost. You cannot bring yourself to join him in lying down, choosing instead to sit against a nearby tree with your knees drawn up. Uncurling now would feel too vulnerable; too naked.

"Would you like to—"

"But what's up with you? You look terrible." He's giving you a long, hard stare that you've never felt before, and your tentative question shrivels on your tongue.  _You_  look terrible? What about him? What about the sheer heaviness of what you saw on his face before he saw yours?

Your reply is spontaneous but evasive. "I've been no different, really. Nothing much happens around here to have such direct bearing on my condition." Waiting for Karkat has become everything, clouding out the fragments of what remained, consuming your thoughts like a hungry animal. It's a constant ache in your chest, but it's not unbearable, and at least it gives you some direction. Where this direction will lead you remains to be seen.

"Scratch that, then", he snaps, now glaring. "What I meant to ask is why you look so pitifully unhappy."

 _What are you talking about?_  you don't ask, because you immediately know. But you don't know what to tell him, or how to answer his question in a way that he'd understand at a time like this. So you give him an indulgent smile and say, "I don't see why it's suddenly a matter of concern. It's not like I'm ever happy."

His astonishment lasts for a second before it's replaced by a recognition that only makes you ache all the more; he's too young to be looking at you like he knows what you mean. But of course, of course he does. You think of Alternia and Beforus and what your blood has done to both of you and try not to feel ill.

"I will admit, though", you say at length with no embarrassment whatsoever, "it gives me a small measure of peace, knowing you're here sometimes."

You wait for him to turn away in mortification, for his grumbling about how cheesy you can be without even trying or intending, for his fidgety changes of subject till what you've said is long behind both of you. Karkat stays where he is. The air is very still.

"Tell me something?" you whisper. You don't know why you whisper it. But to speak any louder in that balmy silence is unthinkable.

"Yeah?" he's whispering too.

"Do you always call my name when you get here before me?"

The answer is hidden in plain sight—in the way he walked while making his way upstream, in the resigned gait. He had not bothered to look past the treeline. He had not raised his voice. Looking for you on the off-chance that you were around was more ritual than hope.

Bemused, you watch him lie there for a minute more; then, wordlessly, he rolls onto his stomach and props himself up on his knees. There's little more than a yard between you. "Karkat—?"

"Shut up and hold still."

You can obey one order, but not the other.

The feel of his lips moving against you—not just your mouth, or your cheek, or your face; it's all you, you as a single unwieldy bundle of heart and sinews and feelings that belong to him and him alone—lingers long after he's pulled away. "What does it fucking matter", he mutters hotly into the crook of your neck. "Literally who the hell cares. You don't usually come when I c—when I do that."

"I come eventually, though." When did you put your arms around him? When did he lean against you? Or were you always like this, except in bad dreams? "I never stay away from here for long. Given the amount of time I spend waiting, it's only fair that you do a bit of the same, don't you think?"

"But I do wait", he reminds you in a voice that's somewhat offended, somewhat accusatory. "I wait on that hellhole of a meteor. You make it sound like I have a goddamn eternal paradise thing going on there, with my friends all going nuts around me and Dave being who he is—"

"Oh, he's no longer Strider to you?" you ask idly.

"He hasn't been Strider to me for a while now. But that doesn't make his company any less infuriatingly obtuse, and it definitely doesn't fucking mean I prefer him to—" He breaks off by himself this time, his face growing warmer and warmer on your skin.

You smile at nobody in particular. "Shut up and hold still."

"Make me", he snorts. His breath is warm, too.

"Make you shut up, or make you hold still?"

"Hmph, not like you can do either. And no!" he adds hastily when you try to raise his head. "That's out of bounds. Kiss me and it's game over.  _Now_  make me, you prickwaffle."

You merely tighten your arms around him at first, burying your nose in his tousled hair and breathing deeply. He smells like sweat and an undefinable something that you know you will never smell anywhere else... except perhaps your own body when you really, really want to believe.

Then you say, "Don't underestimate me."

And with a dull  _fwump_ , he's on his back again—this time with your hands pinning his wrists against the velvety grass and your legs on either side of his waist. Trying not to breathe too heavily, you watch his expression go from bewildered to petulant to exasperated in three seconds. A low laugh rises up from your chest, nervous and shuddery.

"So much for holding still", you begin, "but you seem to have shut up by yourself, so—"

"Not—a— _chance!_ "

Why did you think he didn't have it in him? Hasn't he proven himself to be stronger than you could ever have suspected several times over by now, every ounce of those adolescent muscles housing pure angry energy? For a second, the world is a dizzy blur of green and brown and white—you find yourself facing skyward when it comes back into focus, glaring feebly at Karkat's triumphant face—then it lurches again and he doesn't look so triumphant this time. "What the f—"

 _We should have rolled sideways_ , you think giddily, but it's too late for that. The slope of the bank sends you both tumbling and sputtering into the water.

It's colder than you'd found it when simply testing it with your fingers a while ago; the wetness holds off just long enough for you to think  _oh this isn't so bad_  but it is. It's freezingly bad, and it's in your hair, under your clothes, clinging to your pants far more insistently than your thick woolen sweater. You try to scramble out as fast as you can, but something about the cold makes your movements thick and sluggish until a hand closes over your upper arm and hauls you back onto dry land.

_I keep forgetting how strong he is._

The laughter surfaces again, and this time it's louder and stronger, but that could just be your shaking body. You need to get out of these clothes but that's the last thing you can do with Karkat here, Karkat who's just as badly soaked as you are and doesn't seem to care—Karkat who, to your dumbstruck surprise, is currently pulling his own sweater over his head.

_Is this the first I've seen him—?_

_This is the first time I've—_

"Stop gawping", he snaps, hugging himself as the sweater lands beside him in an ungainly heap; it'll have creases when he wears it again. He doesn't seem to care and you definitely don't. All you can think of is how narrow his chest is despite the muscles already starting to form, how young his body seems in comparison to his  _everything_  else. "Jesus fuck, it's cold. But it'd be worse with the sweater on."

There isn't much to do but gawp.

Presently he turns away—maybe to hide the dull reddening of his chest, maybe to look at the stream.  _It could just be the cold._  Outside of a curious numbness in your extremities, you can barely feel it any more. Once again, he's replaced everything.

"Aren't you going to, uh—you're dripping wet." How cold is his skin now? "You're just going to get sick if you stay like that and to hell with your propriety. Do ghosts even get sick?" he asks as an afterthought, while you flail for some excuse, any excuse.

"We do, but my sweater escaped the worst of it. I'd have to take my pants off if I intend to dry anything out."  _Just take it._ It's bad enough that he's sitting there like that, shirtless and very young— _well, my body's younger than I am too,_  you think weakly—and suddenly too close for comfort. Everything is too close. You want to turn away too.

He's speaking and even his voice sounds too close, like he's saying it in your ear. "Just take them off, idiot. I won't look if you don't want me to. What are you, five?"

"I wish", you say meekly, but your fingers slip beneath the hem of your sweater anyway.  _I really do wish. Maybe I wouldn't feel so completely rotten if I was five._ "I'll just—if it's okay with you. I feel a bit numb."

Even with his face turned away, you know he's rolling his eyes. It cheers you up a little.

"You'd have stayed like that if I hadn't told you to grow a pair. You're fucking unbelievable, you know that?"

"So I've been told." Your body is nothing like his—thin but untoned, bony but almost embarrassingly soft, not a hint of muscle anywhere on your frame that is in so many ways more childlike that Karkat's ever was. You pull your sweater as low as you can over your exposed legs and draw your knees up, clinging to them like a flimsy shield. The grass is as soft as ever.

For one wild moment you imagine Karkat growling with impatience, forcing your arms away, telling you what you already know: that you should get over it—get the  _fuck_ over it—that you are too old to be this young.  _Like he's one to talk... he's too young to be this old, isn't he?_

"Now if you hold still", he says abruptly, "I'll shut up for you."

You cannot push him away when he draws nearer. Even if he's too close for comfort already and the shrinking distance shortens your breaths in equal measure, even if you feel ill with palpitation when he puts his bare arms around you, you've both waited for far too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Less frequent updates equal longer chapters. o/ Let's see where this goes hm hmm
> 
> Pointless (and not so pointless) author's commentary can be found [here](http://kankan.co.vu/tagged/fmtc14/chrono) yada yada. Also you peeps give me hella kudos and very few comments like why you gotta play me like that o:


	16. Fifteen

_Fifteen_

oOo

It's the same thing, really, with the live warmth of his body pressed against yours and your quick, shallow breaths freezing halfway past your lips in the chilly air... your legs now on either side of his and in your arms, a narrow chest with a thumping heart... How dare all of this feel so different with half your clothes off?

 _How dare_ you _,_ you begin, almost heatedly.  _How d—_

But all your thoughts are severed across the middle when he presses a kiss to your forehead; your eyelids droop like iron shutters, like nothing in the world could keep them open right now. All you are really conscious of is a soupy glow that seems to stretch from one horizon to the other, from the gentle panting between his parted lips to the hand cupping your chin. It swirls through your skin with unashamed ardor.

Before he can speak, you hear yourself mutter, "Why are you so much warmer than me?"

"I'm alive, yeah?"

Something about the bluntness of his reply rankles a bit. "That's..."  _That's got to be discriminatory in some way._ "I'll have you know that that was extremely, uh..." You can't do this right now. You have no business thinking at a time like this.  _There should be a word for it, though. There must..._

Cursing under your breath, you feel him shrug, "It's just a fact. Be offended at it if that's what you like. Won't make me dead."

"Thank goodness for that, then", you say, trying not to sound stung or insincere or appalled at the vivid image his words conjured in your mind: Karkat, dead and doomed to wander the bubbles forever, the same as you. Karkat with nowhere to go back to but the eternity of a world that did not perish... nowhere to go but to you. Karkat and you, twin anchors in this sea of madness, a place where forever might mean something, a—

_I'd sooner die again._

"I'll find a way to stay warm despite being dead." Too flat, too dull. "Just you wait."

If nothing, it's a blessing that your eyes are closed.

"No need for that now", Karkat says quietly. "I'm already here." And to your rapidly mounting alarm, fingers slip between sweater and skin.

When your eyes fly open not a second later, he's looking straight into them with an intensity that startles you more than the touch.  _Unreadable as always,_  you decide helplessly after a moment of probing, but his hand conveys more than his face—moving with slow but assured deliberation, the sweater riding higher up his arm with every inch he covers, your exposed skin far hotter than it should be in this wintry air. You as a whole are far hotter than you have any right to be. He's infecting you with his warmth.

His hand stops its upward climb directly above your heart and for one tenuous, ridiculously long moment, you wonder if it will burst.  _What happens then? Without a muscle to_ _res_ _t_ _r_ _ain it, will my heartbeat scatter into my veins, filling my blood with nerve and energy until I myself am nothing more or less than a racing heart?_

But for now you remain contained and content, even if you would be laughing if you could see yourself now, even if your anxiety is crossing into nausea yet again and you are aware of a faint throbbing around your temples. Some parts of you are in pain and others are on fire—specifically the places where his presence is strongest, like your freshly kissed lips, like the pulse between your legs as he brushes against it. You feel sick and mortified and uncomfortable, but if someone were to ask... there is nothing, nothing you want to change about this moment.

You don't know what to do.

As always, Karkat does it for you. His eyes dart away at last and the spell is broken; already the color is rushing to his face, and now he's pulling his hand back, leaving a tinging afterglow in its wake like the tail of a comet. You look on numbly as he gives his head a slight shake, as though to jerk himself out of a persistent dream.

 _Aren't I a dream to you anyway? Y_ our dazed thoughts mercifully go no further for now. He disengages himself from you gingerly, as though afraid that he might break a bone or twist a limb simply by moving, and turns to stare fixedly at the stream.

The silence lasts no longer than three ticks before he coughs, low and purposeful. "I should go."

And he's getting to his feet before you can even process what he's said. Dusting himself off. Opening his mouth again to say bye, but now you have your wits about you; or at least enough of them to interrupt with a "you're going?" that sounds far too amazed. He flushes more deeply this time and coughs again.

"Well, yeah... I did say I wouldn't be able to stay long this time. Gotta run. Shit's happening and is going to keep happening without regard for consequence if I don't go back soon. Honestly", he adds, almost as an aside to himself, "I feel like I'm the only one who actually bloody _cares_ about staying sane for the next sweep or so."

By the time you have a reply to that, he's leaped across the stream.

"Karkat, wait!" you call, your words ringing out bewilderedly in the dead air. His sweater is still lying beside you in a crumpled heap— _he's going back onto the meteor shirtless?_ The fact that he's going back at all is taking a while to reach you; you are too warm to think, too happy. Too full of questions to get a single one out in time, except—

_You've left your sweater behind..._

"Karkat, when are you coming for your—?" and your voice cracks.

And from somewhere in the distance comes the cryptic reply. "Yes!"

You nod slowly. The realization that no one can see you nod now is only just seeping in, rain-like, through your cocoon; he's gone. He touched you and warmed you and, as always, returned to his world. Your fingers are white-knuckled around a sleeve of his sweater.

Fighting to retain the memory of his heat, you curl up on your side, as compact as you can possibly make yourself. The sweater is little more than a black ball against your waist. It feels damp and nowhere near as warm as he was, but it's his and that's enough for you. Before you can think about it too much or chastise yourself for being completely ridiculous, you press it to your face and take one of the longest breaths you have ever held.

You have never been able to truly define Karkat's smell in a way that would make sense to anyone but you—for he smells like rage and toil and shimmering red—and now you do not need to, because you understand without the aid of your words. It's like falling into a dream of your own; for that moment there is nothing to know but the way his arms feel around you, the texture of his lips, the undeniable reality of his existence.

If his existence is currently farther away from you than you would like, what of it? He's left you with enough till he returns.

 _But please do return,_ you think tiredly.  _Please._

And something in your mind echoes,  _"Yes!"_

That is the only thought in your head when your hand begins to stray southward, cinched between your stomach and your thighs, reaching for the one place that is still as warm as Karkat left it. For now there is no hesitation, no questions, none of the horror at his age that so plagued you mere minutes ago.

_Has it really been only a few minutes?_

In the mad fluttering of your heart, not a single  _no_ remains.

Neither is there a need to think at all; your muscles remember these motions better than your mind. As your fingers dip below the waistband of your boxers, all you really know is a sweeping certainty, an inescapable, undeniable  _yes._

When was the last time you actually wanted to do this? How many uncounted sweeps ago?  _Celibate,_  you'd begun to call yourself...  _celibate..._

As your hand continues its unabashed exploration—seemingly of its own accord now—the tingling, blooming, swooping rushes of blood to your groin grow stronger and your unbidden thoughts more fragmented. They dance and collide like beads in a kaleidoscope, faster now, more vivid... Damara coolly telling you to get laid, Cronus' cool skin against your neck as he vainly tries to keep you from freezing, Latula telling you she can't smell...  _Smell_... Shaking all over now, you press Karkat's sweater to your nose with your free hand and try to breathe.

Sensation multiplies tenfold; all thoughts disappear. You bite back your first gasp of surprise just in time to stuff a hurried sleeve into your mouth, muffling your breaths and curling in tighter still. Your hand hardly has room to move now but the tingling, the  _burning_  between your legs never loses momentum, storm-like, splashing the inside of your eyelids with red and every inch of skin with fire—

And in the eye of this storm just Karkat, just a pair of not-quite-red eyes and a shouted  _yes._

"Yes!" you say hoarsely.

It's not really even a modest explosion, though you've been pent up since literally forever. It's something slower, more gradual, like a firework building up inside and blossoming outward; it's a descending giddiness and a low, throbbing moan at the back of your throat. And moments later, once you're no longer trembling and your breathing has regained some kind of rhythm, it's the way the forest and your warm, sticky fluids breathe on your newly sensitive skin... grass and air and murmuring brook moving around you, moving  _with_ you, almost as if it were alive.

_As if I were alive._

" _Be offended if that's what you like. Won't make me dead."_ True... but maybe, if you wish hard enough, try hard enough... you could be a little more alive.

Is that what you want to try now, after so long surrounded by reminders of what death has done to you? A new way to delude yourself into thinking you can match the rhythm of life through sheer effort and a meaningless timepiece?

Has desperation made a fool of you this time, or is it love?

You smile drowsily, and somewhere impossibly far away—or it inside your own head?—Karkat looks over his shoulder and says, "Yes!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to talk at length about my sexuality headcanons for Kankri and then I realized none of it is really relevant here so just think of him as Karkatsexual for now lmao
> 
> But ye for the record I don't think Kankri was ever serious about his ~vow~ in the first place; to me it sounded like a way to deal with his feelings for Latula and crow about his righteousness to everybody else in the process. Karkat probably saw through it too ngl
> 
> The [commentary](http://kankan.co.vu/tagged/fmtc15/chrono) on my blog is getting progressively stupider would not recommend
> 
> Thank you so much for 150+ kudos by the way ;o; don't forget, kids, a comment a day keeps the writer's block at bay. No it really does. I feel way more motivated to write if people are actually waiting you feel me


	17. Sixteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How are you people still even reading this hahahah I disappear for months at a stretch and return with an update that's thicker and slower than molasses but on the bright side at least things are moving somewhere

_Sixteen_

oOo

_Damara_

"Sometimes", you said to Kankri, but you see his young ancestor come and go every single time. He's fun to watch. Easily flustered kid, and Kankri's not much better in situations like these... If you weren't given to listening in on occasion, you'd wonder how they spoke at all.

The eavesdropping is nothing personal; you've spied in this manner on every person you know in the dream bubbles, and only rarely have you come away with a sight you'd rather not have seen. People are, in the end, always the same—in life or death, in public or private, there is little they can do to shock you. Or, indeed, to revolt you.

You've spent far too long being revolted by yourself to waste time on anyone else.

Besides, this is your memory. If there is a place in the entire afterlife where you feel almost entitled to be privy to the conversations of others, it's this one.

 _It's only Kankri after all,_ part of you whispers,  _only Kankri and his loudmouth ancestor._ But that is precisely why you think nothing of dogging their footsteps every now and then. Hidden a safe distance from them both, lulled by Kankri's dulcet tones and Karkat's rough growl, you've never felt quite so protective.

Naive children, both of them... There's a reason no one else has ever found them here.

oOo

_Karkat_

Unless he's elsewhere—which is rare—Kankri is always the first thing you see when you emerge onto the bank of the stream. And once you've laid eyes on him it's somehow hard to stop, so you've had to learn to step across the water without looking; does he notice that you do that? Can he tell why?

Can you?

He looks forlorn again.

 _What do you even do when I'm not around? What do we do when I'm around?_ You've never asked him for the time off that lurid watch, knowing that it would mean little to you, despite how much he says it helps his frittered mind. As such, you've never been able to measure just how long you spend with him during your visits, but if you had to guess...

You can't guess.  _I thought eternity was supposed to last longer._

"What's eating you?" you ask brusquely.

He gives a little start at your voice—hadn't he seen you coming?—and gives you what is clearly intended to be a confused look. "I'm sorry? There's nothing the matter. You really should stop assuming something's wrong every time I look less than chipper."

"That's because something  _has_ been pretty fucking wrong every time." What could it be this time? Another argument, another mood swing? He's still wearing the sweater... Already sinking into your familiar sick concern, you're about to ask more questions, but he stops you with a raised hand—the only person, you realize, who's ever been able to do that.

"Let it be, Karkat", he says. His voice is quiet but unsubdued. "Not this time. Please tell me how you've been."

 _I don't want to._ No aspect of life back on the meteor is the sort of thing you would have liked to talk about. Not Gamzee and his newfound obsession with hiding in the air vents, not the perpetual goddamn darkness everywhere, not Rose and Kanaya in a corner always  _always always_ together or the cans strewn all over the floor or Terezi...

_Terezi._

The other reason you don't want to tell him is just that: you don't want to. There are other things to talk and think about now that you're here.

"I've been fine, actually", you hear yourself say. "But stir-crazy as shit _._ Let's take a walk."

"A walk?" The astonishment in his face does not fail to amuse you; he sounds like this is an utterly alien concept to him. You have not walked with him since your first kiss amongst the strange pale trees and sunshine.

"You heard. Come on, get up. I have an idea."

Sometimes you wonder why he's so quick to obey you. Then you remember that you're supposed to know. "I just thought we'd see where this stream goes. Have you ever tried finding out?"

Kankri shakes his head blankly. You give a grunt of impatience, thrusting your hand out quicker than thought; it's only when he takes it just as automatically that what you're done catches up to you. Too late to pull away—or to want to pull away—you haul him to his feet and return his gaze with unblushing demand.

"Upstream or downstream?"

You blink, startled. "I was assuming downstream. Wanted to see where it ended."

"Sounds good to me."

 _Why can't I ask you this time?_ You've never wanted to snap like this before, never pulled yourself up short so abruptly. It should amuse you now...  _To think that after sweeps of unbridled verbiage directed at whoever I saw fit to be on the receiving end,_   _I end up holding my tongue before the one person who talks more than I do._

But that hasn't been the case of late, either. It's with a painful jerk in your belly that you realize Kankri's only been growing more and more silent.

_When did that stop being a good thing?_

When did his hand grow so tight, so sweaty?

_I know I can't and shouldn't bring it up, but..._

The scene around you is changing, the trees sometimes growing sparser, sometimes melting away altogether; you're approaching the edge of this memory.  _It was ten fucking minutes away and we never bothered to check it out,_ you want to say dryly, before remembering that your mental state and the temporal state of the bubbles combined are not the best place to work with rough estimates of time.

Kankri has a watch. He'd know better, or at least think he knows better, which is good enough for you.

_...but just start talking already, dammit._

"What happens when the stream stops?" he asks softly. When you turn to look at him, he's inscrutable.

"I guess a new memory starts up", you offer, hoping you sound blithe enough to mask your anxiety; what does he want you to say?  _Why do I care?_

"Hm." Even with his hand in yours, he looks like a lost spirit.  _I suppose he is one, come right down to it._ "I guess you're right."

And then, suddenly, "Let's please not go any further."

It's the most he's said in a while. Biting down your immediate—your despicable—first impulse to obey, you gesture towards the dark blob of buildings emerging from the treeline a couple of hundred yards away. "It runs past those, we can see that. Come till there and we can sit around an actual hive for once, turn back whenever."

There turn out to be only three smallish hives, built close together on the edge of the stream, the supports of the foremost one almost at the water's edge. Deciding they don't look near decrepit enough to pass up, you kick your shoes off and sit heavily on the weird wooden lawnring—you've never seen hives of this particular design before. Only then does it occur to you that this memory might not even be from your part of Alternia.  _It might not be from Alternia at all._ The thought that you may be on Beforan soil right now is somehow unsettling to think of.

"Hey." Kankri raises his head, which was examining his knees, and gives you an inquiring stare. "Any idea whose memory this is?"

There's only the briefest of pauses before he replies, "None, sorry."

There always comes a point when you simply can't take it any more.

"Hey", you say again, more gruffly this time, as though in compensation for looking away again. He still hasn't let go of your hand.

And again the pause. "Yes?"

"Come a little closer."

With the first faint glimmer of warmth you've felt since seeing him this time, you watch him scoot compliantly up to you and realize it's getting easier. Words still stick in your mouth and your telltale predisposition for blushing gives you away, but things you thought you would never consider saying, let alone saying so spontaneously...  _Are they supposed to just flow out like this?_

And is it growing easier for him, too? Why else would he lean against you now, without invitation on your part or intimation on his, as smoothly and naturally as the flow of the stream?

"Tired?"

"Yes", he whispers faintly.

"Are you going to talk about it at all?"

To your amazement, you feel his body move just the slightest bit as he chuckles. "Are you, Karkat?"

There's no need to think for the answer; silently, you slip your hand out of his and wrap an arm around him. He feels a great deal thinner than you remember.

At times like these, you wish he'd take the damn sweater off.

"It's not that I don't trust you", you mumble stubbornly; you wish he'd ask if you were tired too, because even the unyielding wood looks inviting for some reason and all you want is to pull him down and breathe with him. "It's just—"

"There's simply no need." His smile is more voice than muscle. "I know how that goes."

And somehow you two  _are_ lying down now, the lawnring hard against your sides and your feet dangling off the edge. Something cold and heavy is slowly, stealthily slipping off your shoulders, and more than ever you want to touch his skin again.

_I don't suppose pushing you into the water would be credible this time?_

Some things have grown easier with time; others, a lot harder. You are very conscious of your arms around his waist.

"Tired?" he breathes against your forehead. Throat too tight for speech, you nod.

Then he does something neither of you have had the gumption to attempt before—throws a languid leg over both of your own. You stiffen for all of two seconds before melting back into him.  _Harder and easier and harder still..._

"I want to stay."

"Hm?"

"I'm going to be here for a while", you murmur. Even though you're much warmer than he is, sweater and all, he's setting off a heat in you that you've never felt on your own. The need to hold on tighter intensifies to a sharp ache in your heart.

"Kankri?"

Somehow when your hands find their way under his sweater, all you can think is,  _Come a little closer._

oOo

_Damara_

"Any idea whose memory this is?"

A single strained moment, and then—

"None, sorry."

Detached and distant, you hear much, much more than they can—the pauses, the breaths, the tones. Half their interaction finds a much better audience in your ears; but then again, they never intended to have an audience at all.

"I want to stay."

Nonetheless, some of the things Karkat says carry the air of a performance.

"Kankri?"

A long, long silence. In the silence you know you no longer want to listen to this part. It's words you seek when following Kankri; there won't be many of those in play now. Not the kind you care for.

Just as you turn your back on the two and whisk away into the woods, you hear him reply with fervid devotion.

" _Karkat!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also about Damara; she just strikes me as likely to be kind in turn to those who've shown her kindness. Kankri has, in his own inept way, been quite nice to her.
> 
> Eavesdropping isn't a kindness, but from her perspective she's both doing them a favor by keeping others away and getting to know them better. Subjective viewpoints are fun \m/
> 
> (ohhh and as you may have noticed I changed my penname to keyKind, which i've heard hecks up bookmarks and the like. just a heads up in case that happened to anyone o':


	18. Seventeen

_Seventeen_

oOo

It's real. He's real.

"Kankri?"

" _Hey."_ And yet, he was so calm about it... "C _ome a little closer."_

It takes you a second or two to find your voice. "I'm here", you say hoarsely. Your throat feels too constricted for much else, your limbs somehow weighed down a thousand times over with sudden sweeping anxiety. And his arms are around the bony narrowness of your waist, pressing you to him—pressing him to you—his chest against your ribcage and his heart at a shaky gallop. You have never been so sharply aware of every inch of your skin.

And in that breath-cold memory with Karkat beside you, every inch of your skin feels ablaze.

He says nothing, merely tightening his hold on you -  _were his hands always that low?_ You have to fight for speech now, but presently you manage to whisper his name. A quiet grunt is the only response.

_Closer..._

You skitter uncontrollably from word to word in the broken mosaic of your thoughts; you see his hand over your heart and his naked chest separated from yours by a single layer of red wool, and you remember thinking  _how dare this be so different with half my clothes off_ and you feel your exultant orgasm of a few weeks ago coil up piercingly at your groin and you remember thinking _this is what it felt like to be alive_ and you know none of that is going to matter if he moves his hands any lower because this, this is the only thing that's happening at this moment and it's real and it's all you care to know about.

"Kankri." This time it isn't a question.

You press your lips to the top of his head and, in the space between two skipped heartbeats, his fingers sneak beneath your sweater.

There's no fighting the little jerk that travels through your limbs. He stops moving abruptly, just long enough for your insides to turn icy and whisper  _it's over now you moon-faced virgin you've made yourself look like this is new to you and why would he want that kind of responsibility from the likes of—_ and then it's gone, stifled mid-sentence as he raises his face to yours and pulls you into a long, silent kiss.

" _Karkat!"_  you say helplessly when his lips leave yours. It's the most ungainly thing you can recall having said ever. It's also the only thing you can say.

Your eyes spring open again only when Karkat asks you, his voice amazingly steady, "Cold?"

And you are thankful beyond words to find no shutters in his when you look into them.

"No."

Everything is slow—by now you have learned to tell the difference between things that  _seem_  to stretch on and things that actually do. This does not  _feel_ slow. Karkat takes an entire minute to start sliding your sweater upward, every touch magnified twofold by his pace and your unstoppable trembling; no matter how you try, you cannot unfeel his own hesitation, the not-quite-leisurely lingering of his hands, something that was entirely absent the last time you two shed clothes before each other.  _Was it because we intended to go no further,_ you wonder,  _or because we had no intentions at all?_

What are your intentions now? What are his? Your sweater rides reluctantly up your sides, and soon you're going to have to raise your arms.  _This is a terrible position to be doing something like this... Something like what?_ What does he want? What do both of you want to achieve by doing this? What do you  _intend_ to achieve?

But somewhere in the midst of your forever fluttering questions, you still remember to push yourself up; first back, then shoulders, then arms. A dry wave of warmth coasts over your torso, cold in hot pursuit—you clench your eyes shut automatically as the turtleneck slides upward and now you are not so suddenly clad in your pants and shoes and nothing else. You have to struggle to look Karkat in the eye. He's less red-faced than you'd hoped he would be.

"Your turn", you hear yourself say, unbidden. You're not as taken aback as you hoped you would be either.

_Intentions,_ your mind repeats beseechingly, and you tell it to hold its peace. It was easier when you had none of those.

All you really want is to be able to touch him.

"Say", he begins shortly, then breaks off with a muffled grunt reminiscent of a raring animal. When he braces himself against the dark wood and pushes himself upright, his stiffness is unmistakeable: shoulders pulled tightly inward and head bowed, he looks the very picture of diffidence.

And you find yourself devoid of the courage to ask.

When he speaks, his voice is lower and slower than it's ever been. "I don't really know where to go from here."

_Oh._

"Have—have you never done anything like th—"  _Like what? What was I going to say?_ Relief and confusion are engulfing you in turn, jumbling your words; you try again once, twice, then lapse into defeated silence as he watches you out the corner of his eye.

"I honestly can't say, you know?" he mumbles after you've lost count of the seconds. "I guess it depends. What about you?"

_Celibate, I was calling myself._ But there was a time when you did not use even that flimsy barricade to disguise your unwillingness... Latula flashes briefly before your eyes, head thrown back in laughter, and is immediately replaced by Cronus... Cronus with his fumbling pretenses of experience and his clumsy, eager hands and skin that was never quite warm enough for you.

_I think I started talking about my oath not long after._

And what was this oath supposed to forbid? Do you even care to put words to what you want to do with Karkat, at this point in infinite time and immeasurable space with your sweater lying beside you and his eyes on your bare throat? Can you do it at all?

"Depends", you say, and your grimace turns into a genuine smile when his eyes meet yours. "I don't really  _want_  to know where we're going."

He snorts derisively, but some of the stiltedness to his words has dissolved when he responds. "You never seemed like the adventurous type."

"I don't  _seek_ adventure", you say truthfully. "The good ones find me anyway."

"Good ones!" he repeats, this time with a sincere laugh. "Don't speak too soon, asshole." And with the same fluid ease that he had displayed last time, he grabs fistfuls of the back of his sweater and pulls it smoothly over his head.

Like last time, you're dimly aware that the identical tousling of your hair is where the similarity between you two now ends. You struggle not to give into the familiar need to curl up as he turns to face you fully, chest as toned as ever and—now that it's a little easier for you to look—visibly sporting a thorny mosaic of scars. Under other circumstances, you would have been fascinated by the sheer multitude and variety of them; arrayed like this on Karkat's achingly young body, it's all you can do to choke back the alarming prickle at the back of your eyes.

"They're all old, quit staring." He doesn't miss a thing. "Not like they hurt any more."

_That's not the point..._ The point is that you cannot take a single step without being reminded of how different he truly is, how divorced his troubles from yours.

And yet...

"Here, look." Hands amazingly disobedient, you scrabble at your belt till it comes undone, pushing the upper half of your pants down to your waist in something of a daze. This is all you can think of doing at this moment; you  _need_ to try and equalize matters just the tiniest bit, even if it makes him laugh or scoff or berate you for thinking it's the same.

_I need to close this gap..._ This feeling of uprootedness that assails you every time you are confronted by his dissimilarity.  _I need to stop forgetting that he's someone outside of the sphere in which I exist to him._

Why does it upset you so to remember how deeply the two of you differ?

Somehow, you are not cold in the slightest. You raise an arm to reveal the one physical blemish the game left you with, and did not expect his hissing intake of breath.

" _God!_ What the  _fuck_  did that?"

Self-consciousness catches up at last and you make to hide it again, but he reaches out and holds your arm in place, regarding the long-healed gash underneath with wide eyes. "Shit on a stick, that looks like hell. Was it a stab?"

_Oh..._

"The archagent of Derse got a little up in arms when we first met", you hear yourself say.

_I'm just most comfortable viewing him as a reflection of myself..._

There's a very short, very thick pause. Then he raises his arm too; you take one look at the scar this uncovers—a look just long enough to note the precise length and texture, and to  _know_ with a surety that's more visceral than cerebral—and burst into laughter. And there's little surprise when he joins in.

_...that I can actually love._

With his arms around you and yours around him, wrapped in the jubilant sweetness of his skin against yours, you want more than anything to stop caring about the ways in which he mirrors you so imperfectly. It is this thought that keeps you still when his fingers start up again, snaking beneath your already bunched up pants and giving them a quick but firm tug. There is no shying away now, no doubts about intention and catastrophe; only the eternal murmur of your own questions and your own emotions and you you  _you_ so absorbed in your own musings when the one you want the most is a mere breath away.

_Is it so wrong to want to love myself?_ you wonder glumly.

Nothing feels wrong if he's involved.

Nothing should ever feel wrong about wanting to see yourself the way you see him...

"I swear", he mutters into your neck, almost wistfully. You wait a few seconds before realizing his sentence isn't going anywhere and then mutter back, "Me too."

"You too what?" Has he ever sounded so wholly amused before?

_Me too._

"It doesn't matter", you say as your hands cover his, dragging your pants lower still. "Won't you come a little closer, Karkat?"

The embarrassment is so faint it hardly registers; Karkat's lips find your collarbone, and his fingers dip further down—lower,  _closer_ to where the heat is most intense, most blissfully urgent.  _Me too._

"I will", he says.

_I love you too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmfao yeah this took way longer and I mean WAY longer than anticipated because a) I am a stressed out pos thanks to college being absolute bee ess b) I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter.
> 
> Karkat implying he's never done 'anything like this' before is mostly, well, Karkat being Karkat (i.e. sentimental and over-the-top romantic) because it's canon that none of the Alternian trolls are virgins at the point the story takes place, seeing as they've been supplying the imperial drone with genetic fluid for some time now
> 
> Karkat's reasoning behind saying it 'depends' was that prior to this, he'd never had the luxury of seeing sexual activity as something intimate or emotional. I don't think doing the do for the sole purpose of filling a pail with your partner counts as romantic (which is why, in a way, it makes sense for all the Alternian trolls to be demisexual since sex and sexual attraction simply aren't given the same significance in their society as they are in ours).
> 
> I also wanted to address Kankri's self-absorption in his relationship with Karkat, since I think they both have their own selfish reasons for being together, actual feelings aside. In addition to the recurring motif of Karkat making Kankri feel "alive" (which is to say, like he exists and has actual emotions that need to be validated), he also serves as Kankri's sole negative space, which is a pretty big role to play in someone's mind - especially since it's so passive. There is simply no way to describe that purpose of Karkat's without making Kankri sound extremely self-centered. But eh... I'd say he deserves it after all this time.
> 
> Oh and I did change my penname again. Apologies. :u //lopes off to study some more data structures


	19. Seventeen Point Five

_Seventeen Point Five_

oOo

_Karkat_

It doesn't bear reflecting on now. You have other things to do when he's not around.

_"I can't really say, you know? I guess it depends."_

It was all you could bring yourself to tell him; a universe's worth of cultural differences rendered the long story too tiresome for a moment so fleeting.  _None of it matters anyway._ With him there like that, his flat white eyes first wide with anticipation, then clenched with mortification (and yet, he'd been the one to say  _I don't want to know where we're going_ ) and the gentle sway of his chest against yours—fucking  _nothing_ had mattered back then but him, your life and the air you breathed were Kankri and the entirety of his death resided in you.

_It's because of the way he looks at me._

Why must his lips part beneath your tongue in a way that hints more at prayer than kiss, his fingers in your hair less ardent than devout? Why did his clinging arms, his trembling words, his  arrhythmic breaths sound so deeply worshipful—why then, when all he saw was you?

Your face is growing warm again; again you give your door a furtive glance. Verifying that it remains as locked as you first left it, you slump and turn away, sheets hissing softly in your wake. Sleep has been more elusive than ever without slime.

Insomnia brings unruly thoughts with it, and the unruliest of the lot  _will_ inevitably stray to Kankri... and the events of a few days ago...

_I shouldn't even be lying down, god dammit._

What would you do if you were up and about at this instant? Roam the dark hallways with your hands in your pockets, glaring into every deserted room in search of something new like a broody misanthropic ghoul? Talk to Dave? Talk to Kanaya? Talk to Terezi? You let loose a bitter laugh despite yourself; at least Terezi makes the list. Gamzee is nowhere on it and, of late, nowhere in sight.

You suppose you should be worried—for Terezi, at least, if not for Gamzee—but all you can muster up is a desperation to fall asleep... and always, always the underlying impatience to get away again.

_Again..._

Yet, for all the repetition and routine, Kankri remains the one thing you cannot tire of.

You might as well stay like this. If there's one place on this dark, cold meteor where you feel at ease with your own emotions, it's in the respiteroom you've claimed as your own; nothing speaks security to you like a firmly bolted door, and even your restlessness here is infinitely preferable to the misery of curling up on your moirail's horn pile... though you are inexpressibly tired either way, and trying your utmost to sleep.

Or so you believed until you started thinking of him again.

_"Won't you come a little closer?"_

Throwing your own words back at you, the prick... But come closer you did, for the simple reason that it was all you could do. Even in your desperate embrace he felt somehow unreal. He was slender and soft-skinned beneath his clothes and for a moment, you were genuinely afraid that the callused hardness of your own body would sink into his like a swallow in the mist and be lost forever.

You did not sink. You dropped a hand to his—identical only in shape and nothing else—and kissed his collarbone as your fingers entwined.

_He was everything._

Your muscles ache; your bones feel hollow. Your mind flutters and soars, heart picking up speed to match, and you have lost all hope of sleep for the day.

_He was_

He was your quivering soul and the droop of your eyelids, the tension in your legs on either side of his narrow waist, and he was the ache in your knees as they protested, unheard, against the century-old wood. He was color and sound and you were the taste in his mouth.

And you were the burning in his blood when he called your name.

And he was

_everything._

You groan and mash your face into a pillow.

_Tomorrow,_ you think,  _it'll have to be tomorrow._ Any later than that will kill you. If it weren't for the questions no one asks you— _Where have you been? What's been eating you?_ —this would be simpler, the time between your visits less agonizing, but your wariness (and the wild hope that someone, some day, will miss you in your absence) is an obstacle you only half want to cross.

_I wish time was as meaningless here as it is in the bubbles..._

_Maybe then I wouldn't feel so pissi_ _ng_ _ly alive._

Maybe then your departures wouldn't feel like waking from a dream, fleeting and  painfully intense , complete with an unshakeable sense of loss.  _What happens when the dream goes away for good?_

_Will I ever sleep again?_

In the end, it's the exhaustion of your lovesick brain that keeps you from your rest.  _Sounds about right_ , you will think later when your thoughts have regained their coherence;  _it's his fault. He's the cause of everything._ _Everything._

_I’m going to see him tomorrow._

But when you sleep  at last  and your dreams find you again, they  too  will lead you to Kankri.

 


	20. Eighteen

_Home?_

That's not what he says, but you hear it anyway. What he actually says is "I'm here", his hands thrust deep in his pockets and eyes looking directly into yours; more contentious, more defiant than usual, as though daring you to laugh.

You're not seeing the joke. People have informed you over time that you never had much of a sense of humor.

"Welcome back...?" You're unsure what else he expects. Karkat is not usually given to announcing his arrival—it hardly bears announcing when you see him, sense him the instant his footfalls are within earshot, have memorized the uncertain heaviness of his gait to the tiniest twig that breaks underfoot. This he likely knows, and you have made no attempt to hide; why bother any more? Who cares but the two of you?

_What is shame, what is restraint?_ you ask yourself wryly.

_Shame_ seems to be the rising color in his cheeks as he steps across the stream.  _Shame_ is the small, dry cough you hear over the burbling water, and the stiffness in his knees as he drops gracelessly to the ground beside you, and  _restraint_ is the hand that stays at your side instead of finding the steady pulse of his.

"I know it's just been two days. Shut up."

"I haven't said a word", you say, startled, even as something swells in your chest. You know full well how long has passed between this visit and his last.

"You said 'welcome back', didn't you?" he mutters.

"Isn't that how one normally responds when someone says they're—"

_Home?_

"—here?"

"Hell if I know? Not like anyone ever says that on the meteor. I get jack shit by way of a welcome when I go back there."

"I'll make sure to have them arrange a welcome party for you one day", you say indulgently. It seems to have been the wrong thing to say; there is no trace of amusement on his upturned face as his eyes—redder every time you see them—rake the treetops above.

"That's real fucking neat, but if you could come to the meteor in the first place it'd render the necessity of a welcome pretty moot, don't you think?"

The swelling something inside you seems to have taken a puncture, leaving you curiously hollow.

You don't want to be unhappy again just yet. "What's eating you today, Karkat?"

"Today, yesterday, and everyday", he shrugs. "It's nothing to get your panties knotted over. I'm just bored is all."

You were not prepared to feel this cold over something this small.

_But you're here... you're home._

How disgustingly predictable that the idea of being bored at a time like this had never occurred to you.  _I'm never bored these days, am I? How can I be?_ How indeed, when every waking moment is now occupied with either thoughts of Karkat or Karkat himself... although, in these mazes of dream and memory, they boil down to essentially the same thing. Not for the first time, you wonder if he's just a very persistent hallucination.

"I guess it's just me then, huh?" he's saying, real or not. "Dunno why I seem to be the only one who feels that way. It's bedlam on the meteor."

You wonder if he's acquiescent right now only because his face is hidden from view. You haven't the heart to begrudge him the privacy; for now it's enough that he's physically close, sprawled out as usual with his head against your chest and your arms languidly clasped around him.

_When did we end up like this?_ Is it too automatic to bear registering now?  _Why... Why does that hurt to contemplate?_

"Bedlam?" you echo vaguely, only half listening. He must have guessed anyway.

"Not that you'd think so at first glance. At first glance everything feels like it's  _dying_." He comes down heavily on the  _dying,_ and you feel your detached, floaty comfort dissipate just a little. "It's like in the really shitty horror movies where you enter a dark hive and everything seems to be quiet and then seventeen million ghosts and their lusus come out of the woodwork. Rose is literally never not drunk. Kanaya is literally never not with Rose. Gamzee is—fuck if I even know? Same goes for Terezi, I never see those two any more so—that just leaves the mayor and Dave, and Dave is just..."

_I'm never going to get used to the way his voice catches on "Dave"._ And you know you are never going to ask.

"...Dave is just Dave. He's either trailing behind Rose or trying to rap. Someone needs to tell him he can't sing before he hurts himself." The reason it bothers you will creep up on you only much later—that you have listened to him talk about Dave Strider for something close to a sweep and heard Karkat's voice go from disgusted to petulant to resigned to noncommittal to absurdly affectionate in a way that would never have happened with you.

Not naturally, anyway. Not if you'd been able to control yourself any better, if you'd chosen not to make a  _fool_ of yourself at precisely the right moment and if he hadn't turned out to be just as bad.

_I'm not the kind of person you fall in love with of your own accord._

Was that a choice you made when alive, too? Why does it have to weigh on you even in death?

"Am I talking to this forest of souls here or are you listening to me?"

"Forest of souls", you say meekly. "Got lost in my thoughts for a bit."

"Well, find your way back stat", he grumbles. "Not like anyone else deigns to lower their sound orifices to the wavelength of my growling. Or ever did, come right down to it."

You snort. "Join the eternity-old club."

"You wouldn't happen to have any idea of how long that actually is?"

Startled, you pull back a little. "No clue in terms of sweeps. All I can say is it's been long enough."  _Long enough that I stopped trying to count... long enough for an entire universe, a new civilization, a whole new history to write itself over the ground on which I once stood._ The thought that now you can never truly lose what you left behind should not be this comforting to you.

"Pardon my Midwest Beforan, but it's been a long-ass time", you say drily.

"Figured as much", replied Karkat, face now upturned and eyes resting on yours. Another thing you are not used to yet. "I'd have thought that you, of all people, would know what it's like to be bored out of your goddamn mind."

_But bored wasn't the word I chose to use for it._

_I was tired._

Maybe there was a time when you would have found "bored" a more fitting adjective for yourself. When you were still new to the bubbles, when the wonder had only just begun to peel off like cheap paint, leaving you with flaky amusement and exposed chunks of darkness that tasted like horror. When denial was fresh in the air, the meaning of  _forever_ yet incomprehensible... Maybe in those days—days when you had not truly ceased to live—you could have said you were bored.

"Boredom implies the passage of time, a lack of enjoyable activities with which to employ said time. How long can you stay bored if there's no end in sight?"

"Forever?" Karkat supplied baldly.

You shake your head, looking away. "That's easier said than done, Karkat."

_These days all I am is tired, tired, tired. Boredom is a luxury I lost long ago._

"I thought the watch was helping your time problem? Isn't that the entire point of wearing one?" Concern? Curiosity? Frustration? You cannot tell. These days, apparently, it is you who refuses to meet his eyes for long.

Is there any way to explain it to him, really? Is it even possible for the living to understand what it means to die? If there were, would you want him to understand at all?

_Let him live while he's alive. Let me fool myself that I can be like him, even if just for a moment... Let me pretend that as long as he's here, I too can live again. Let us both indulge each other in this pointless finitude..._

The watch has helped you in the worst way possible; for as long as you are aware of time, you are aware of how it presides over that which defines your very sense of self right now. But what meaning does that answer hold for someone who has never existed outside of time in the first place?

"It's an invaluable help, certainly", you say at last. "The structure of days is a lot easier to make out now. Of course, there's only so much a watch can do when there's no planet to rotate and no stars to revolve around—"

"I could get you a calendar too."

_For what sweep, pray tell?_ But he's joking. It's evident from the twitch of his upper lip when you look at his face at last. "I'm just messing with you, numbskull. Joking around to pass the time is a thing humans seem to take pleasure in."

_No... he won't understand until and unless he dies himself._

"I hope you never run out of it, then", you say quietly.

"Huh?"

This is an awkward position to kiss someone in; it takes longer and feels more uncomfortable than you'd anticipated, his lips stiff with surprise against yours. But he does not push you away and he does not say a word when you proceed to kiss his nose next, then his eyelids.  _I should put more thought into these things. ...Or become more flexible._

"Time", you whisper, resting your forehead on his. It hurts your back to stay this way, but you find that a welcome distraction from the ache in your chest. "May you have all the time in the world."

_May you have the privilege of being bored for as long as you please._

The gruffness of his voice belies his words. "Keep talking like that, and someday I'll bore the shit out of you as well."

"You've been trying for eight months, you know." As the weight of your recent realization tumbles out of your mouth, you find it matters little for now.  _It's been eight months and we still have a very long way to go. Why care now?_ Why start now when he's got so much time?

_Time always brings an end, but for now it's nowhere in sight._

"And I intend to keep trying for twenty-eight more", Karkat groused. "Don't put it past me to have a new trick up my sleeve next time I'm—"

— _bored—_

"—home. Erm, I mean here. Here, not back home, on the meteor..."

_But since when have you ever called the meteor home?_ You wonder, as he grows steadily redder beneath your bemused gaze.

" _If you could come to the meteor in the first place it'd render the necessity of a welcome pretty moot, don't you think?"_

_Ah..._

"I look forward to it", you say gently. "Do try your best to hurry home then."

_I love him._

"I will", he mumbles, his hand very sweaty in yours.

_I love this person._

Against all reason, against all sensibility, across all boundaries of life and time and memory you had to be a fool for this one... so like you, yet nothing alike; a paradox of similarity between two scars on the surface of evolution.  _Maybe that's the point. Maybe someday we'll eliminate each other with how different we are... maybe we'll complete each other instead._

_But if time thinks it could ever have stopped us, then I guess it's the biggest fool of all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone sent me an anon about this on the tumbles so i thought i'd clear it up for anyone else who's curious: the karkat in this fic is still from the original alpha timeline, and as such is unaffected by the changes implemented by john post [S] Game Over. i have no intention of retconning my own story to accommodate the upd8 since it works out so ridiculously well for the ending i was planning to give it anyway. :^B
> 
> i've been remiss in tending to this fic owing to my poor mental health and rather uncertain future irl. i can't promise another chapter anytime soon, but... let's just say i was spurred to get this one out of the way (since it's been in the works for a while) following a wonderful review i recently received from volatileBloodlust because i'm as weak for feedback as the next thirsty author. orz
> 
> as always, the comments and kudos my readers leave me are dearly appreciated ;w;ノ


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